Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Original Article
  • Published:

Disgust and perceived control in attitudes toward obese people

Abstract

Background:

Efforts to explain negative attitudes toward obese people have centered on beliefs about the controllability of body weight, whereas other processes (such as the emotion of disgust) have been largely ignored. This study examined the role of disgust in evaluations of obese people, as well as other social groups (for example smokers, drug addicts, women, homosexuals, politicians).

Method:

In three studies, participants (total N=524) made ratings of how much they believe that obesity is a matter of personal control, indicated how disgusted they are with obese people, and reported their attitudes toward obese people. In Study 1, participants also made similar ratings (perceptions of control over group membership, disgust, and attitudes) for 15 additional social groups.

Results:

Disgust was the strongest predictor of negative attitudes toward obese people, and disgust fully mediated the association between perceptions of control and attitudes toward obese people. In addition, obese people were rated less favorably, and as more disgusting, than almost all social groups. Across all social groups, perceived control over group membership was positively correlated with disgust ratings, and disgust mediated the link between perceived control and favorability ratings.

Conclusion:

These findings indicate that disgust is an important, yet understudied, component of weight bias. Furthermore, these findings situate representations of obesity in a broader context by establishing similarities with other social groups.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Rent or buy this article

Prices vary by article type

from$1.95

to$39.95

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Goffman I . Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice Hall, NJ, 1963.

    Google Scholar 

  2. Puhl R, Brownell KD . Bias, discrimination, and obesity. Obes Res 2001; 9: 788–805.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  3. Flegal KM, Carroll MD, Ogden CL, Johnson CL . Prevalence and trends in obesity among US adults, 1999–2000. JAMA 2002; 288: 1723–1727.

    PubMed  Google Scholar 

  4. Crandall CS . Prejudice against fat people: ideology and self-interest. J Pers Soc Psychol 1994; 66: 882–894.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  5. Teachman BA, Gapinski KD, Brownell KD, Rawlins M, Jeyaram S . Demonstrations of implicit anti-fat bias: the impact of providing causal information and evoking empathy. Health Psychol 2003; 22: 68–78.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  6. Schwartz MB, Vartanian LR, Nosek BA, Brownell KD . The influence of one's own body weight on implicit and explicit anti-fat bias. Obesity 2006; 14: 440–447.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  7. Cramer P, Steinwert T . Thin is good, fat is bad: how early does it begin? J Appl Dev Psychol 1998; 19: 429–451.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Schwartz MB, Chambliss HO, Brownell KD, Blair SN, Billington C . Weight bias among health professionals specializing in obesity. Obes Res 2003; 11: 1033–1039.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  9. Yang W, Kelly T, He J . Genetic epidemiology of obesity. Epidemiol Rev 2007; 29: 49–61.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  10. Anesbury T, Tiggemann M . An attempt to reduce negative stereotyping of obesity in children by changing controllability beliefs. Health Edu Res 2000; 15: 145–152.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Cottrell CA, Neuberg SL . Different emotional reactions to different groups: a sociofunctional threat-based approach to ‘prejudice’. J Pers Soc Psychol 2005; 88: 770–789.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  12. Fiske ST, Cuddy AC, Glick P, Xu J . A model of (often mixed) stereotype content: competence and warmth follow from perceived status and competition. J Pers Soc Psychol 2002; 82: 878–902.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  13. Taylor K . Disgust is a factor in extreme prejudice. Br J Soc Psychol 2007; 46: 597–617.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  14. Rozin P, Haidt J, McCauley CR . Disgust. In: Lewis M, Haviland-Jones JM (eds). Handbook of Emotions, 2nd edn. Guilford Press: New York, 2000. pp 637–653.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Harvey T, Troop NA, Treasure JL, Murphy T . Fear, disgust, and abnormal eating attitudes: a preliminary study. Int J Eat Disord 2002; 32: 213–218.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  16. Hodson G, Costello K . Interpersonal disgust, ideological orientations, and dehumanization as predictors of intergroup attitudes. Psychol Sci 2007; 18: 691–698.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  17. Krendl AC, Macrae NC, Kelley WM, Fugelsang JA, Heatherton TF . The good, the bad, and the ugly: an fMRI investigation of the functional anatomic correlates of stigma. Soc Neurosci 2006; 1: 5–15.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  18. Haidt J, McCauley C, Rozin P . Individual differences in sensitivity to disgust: a scale sampling seven domains of disgust elicitors. Pers Individ Dif 1994; 16: 701–713.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Olatunji BO, Williams NL, Tolin DF, Sawchuck CN, Abramowitz JS, Lohr JM et al. The disgust scale: item analysis, factor structure, and suggestions for refinement. Psychol Assess 2007; 19: 281–297.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  20. Baron RM, Kenny DA . The moderator-mediator variable distinction in social psychological research: conceptual, strategic, and statistical considerations. J Pers Soc Psychol 1986; 51: 1173–1182.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  21. Preacher KJ, Hayes AF . SPSS and SAS procedures for estimating indirect effects in simple mediation models. Behav Res Methods Instrum Comput 2004; 36: 717–731.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  22. Gray H, Gray K, Wegner DM . Dimensions of mind perception. Science 2007; 315: 619.

    Article  CAS  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  23. Gray K, Wegner DM . Moral typecasting: divergent perceptions of moral agents and moral patients. J Pers Soc Psychol 2009; 96: 505–520.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  24. Oaten M, Stevenson RJ, Case TI . Disgust as a disease-avoidance mechanism. Psychol Bull 2009; 135: 303–321.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  25. Park JH, Schaller M, Crandall CS . Pathogen-avoidance mechanisms and the stigmatization of obese people. Evo Hum Behav 2007; 28: 410–414.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Hebl MR, Mannix LM . The weight of obesity in evaluating others: a mere proximity effect. Pers Soc Psychol Bull 2003; 29: 28–38.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

  27. Rozin P . The process of moralization. Psychol Sci 1999; 10: 218–221.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Rozin P, Singh L . The moralization of cigarette smoking in the United States. J Consum Psychol 1999; 8: 321–337.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Silverstein B, Peterson B, Purdue L . Some correlates of the thin standard of physical attractiveness of women. Int J Eat Disord 1986; 5: 898–905.

    Google Scholar 

  30. Latner JD, Stunkard AJ . Getting worse: the stigmatization of obese children. Obes Res 2003; 11: 452–456.

    Article  PubMed  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank Danielle Arigo, Daria Bakina, Kristin Heron, Kelly Filipkowski, Lindsay Kraynak, and Lauren Miller for the discussions that motivated this work; Lisa A Williams for her advice on the strategy used for the social-groups analysis; and Rebecca T Pinkus for her helpful comments on this article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to L R Vartanian.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The author declares no conflict of interest.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Vartanian, L. Disgust and perceived control in attitudes toward obese people. Int J Obes 34, 1302–1307 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2010.45

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Revised:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ijo.2010.45

Keywords

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links