Posted: March 22nd, 2022

Obesity Stigma: Perceived Intelligence and Self-Esteem Among College Students Student’s Name The University of Texas at Arlington OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM

Place your order now for a similar assignment and have exceptional work written by our team of experts, At affordable rates

For This or a Similar Paper Click To Order Now

This is an example Running head: OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 1 Obesity Stigma: Perceived Intelligence and Self-Esteem Among College Students Student’s Name The University of Texas at Arlington OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 2 Abstract The purpose of this study is to explore and understand obesity stigmatization, more specifically, the influence of gender, weight, and food condition on perceived self-esteem and intelligence. To demonstrate the effect of specific variables on perceived self-esteem and intelligence, findings from previous literature was used to aid the direction of the current research. The participants were randomly selected from the University of Texas at Arlington to take a survey which asked them to rate the self-esteem and intelligence of the person in the scenario based on the person’s gender (male or female), weight (skinny or obese), and food condition (Subway or McDonald’s). SPSS was used to perform a between-subjects factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA). The overall hypothesis for each of the two analyses were as follows: 1) Weight and gender will affect perceived self-esteem. Specifically, skinny males will be perceived to have the highest self- esteem followed by skinny females. Obese females will be perceived to have the lowest self- esteem. 2) Gender and food condition will affect perceived intelligence. Specifically, males who choose healthy food option will be perceived to be most intelligent followed by females who choose the same healthy food option. Females who choose an unhealthy food option will be perceived to be the ones with least intelligence. The results indicated that both primary and secondary analyses were partially supported. The study demonstrated the ubiquity of obesity stigma among college students and perception of an individual changes based on physical characteristics. Keywords: Perceived self-esteem, perceived intelligence, stigma, stereotypes, obesity. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 3 Obesity Stigma: Perceived Intelligence and Self-Esteem Among College Students Stigma is illustrated as an attribute that is devalued and discredited in a social context, which can discount the individual into believing that he or she is impaired and disabled (Goffman, 1963). Obesity and diet are one of the compelling examples of stigmatization in today’s society. The increasing concern about weight and body size is prevalent worldwide and has been of high interest for psychology research. Fat jokes, derogatory comments, and other types of humiliation are ubiquitous, and are often the spotlight of media coverage (Puhl & Brownell, 2001). Past research has mainly focused on understanding the emotions associated with obesity stigmatism and age groups that are largely affected by the stigma. Moreover, researchers explored extensively on the effect of how one’s own body weight influenced their self-esteem, but did not seek to assess how other people perceive self-esteem and intelligence of obese people based on their body size. Our study aims to understand how people perceive intelligence and self-esteem in other people based on gender, weight, and food choice. Bias, prejudice, and discrimination toward people who are overweight or obese has become so common and acceptable in day-to-day situations. It could be on account of the person’s gender, weight, food choice, etc. According to Lieberman, Tybur, and Latner (2012), females are shown greater degree of disgust based on their body size compared to males. Disgust was the strongest mediator of negative attitudes towards people who are obese (Vartanian, 2010). Even family doctors or general practitioners perceive their obese patients as unmotivated towards dieting (Teixeira, Pais-Ribeiro, & Maia, 2015). To explain this observation, another study claimed that doctors take the victim blaming approach, implying that they hold the obese patients responsible for the cause of their own problem (Ogden et al., 2001). In response to those studies, OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 4 our study aims to assess how college students perceive self-esteem and intelligence when they look at gender, weight, and food choice. It was hypothesized that skinny people will be perceived to have higher self-esteem than people who are obese. It was also hypothesized that males will be perceived to have higher self- esteem than females. Finally, it was hypothesized that both weight and gender will affect perceived self-esteem. Specifically, skinny males will be perceived to have the highest self- esteem followed by skinny females. Obese females will be perceived as the ones with the lowest self-esteem. Moreover, it was hypothesized that males will be perceived to be more intelligent than females. It was also hypothesized that people who opt for Subway Veggie Delite (healthy option) will be perceived to be more intelligent than people who opt for McDonald’s Big Mac (unhealthy option). Finally, it was hypothesized that both gender and healthy/unhealthy food condition will affect perceived intelligence. Specifically, males who opt for Subway Veggie Delite will be perceived to be most intelligent followed by females who opt for Subway Veggie Delite. Females who opt for McDonald’s Big Mac will be perceived as the ones with the least intelligence. Methods Participants In this study, a random sample of 144 students, 72 males and 72 females, were surveyed from the University of Texas at Arlington. During the semester of Fall 2016, the surveys were distributed to random students on campus who were willing to volunteer as participants for the study. No compensation was provided to the participants. Demographic characteristics such as race and ethnicity were not considered to select the participants for this study, and all participants OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 5 remained anonymous for the entire study. Interested students took a few minutes to fill out the survey. Materials Materials such as department approved surveys and Statistic Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) were used. The survey consisted of a total of four questions that followed a brief desсrіption of a scenario. A total of eight scenarios were produced. The desсrіption of each scenario included variables such as gender (male or female), food conditions (healthy: Subway Veggie Delite or unhealthy: McDonald’s Big Mac), and weight condition (skinny or obese). The questions were rated on a Likert-scale, which ranged from 1 to 6, displayed as “Very Unlikely” to “Very Likely,” respectively. The survey assessed perception on intelligence (how intelligent that the people in the scenarios are perceived to be), self-esteem (how much self-esteem that the people in the scenarios are perceived to have), weight locus of control (how much control on one’s own weight that the people are perceived to have in the scenarios), and altruism (how willing the participant is to give the person in the scenario a dollar) by analyzing the variables. The data was collected and analyzed in IBM SPSS Release 19.0.0.2. Procedure Random students around campus were asked to take the survey. Participants were verbally informed that they could discontinue their participation at any point when taking the survey. In order to maintain the anonymity of the participants’ responses, the participants were asked to not write their name on the survey. On average, participants only took about two to three minutes to complete the survey. When finished with the survey, the participants were debriefed to inform that the nature of the study was to assess perceptions on obesity and diet based on gender, food condition, and weight condition. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 6 All the responses were collected, inputted into a data summary sheet, and transferred to SPSS for data analysis. Results The overarching hypotheses for the analyses include: 1) The weight and gender of the person in the scenario will affect how these people are perceived in regards to self-esteem. Specifically, skinny males will be perceived to have the highest self-esteem followed by skinny females. Obese females will be perceived to have the lowest self-esteem. 2) The food condition and gender in the scenario will affect how these people are perceived in regards to intelligence. Specifically, males who choose Subway Veggie Delite (healthy option) will be perceived to be most intelligent followed by females who choose Subway Veggie Delite. Females who choose McDonald’s Big Mac (unhealthy option) will be perceived to be the ones with least intelligence. To assess that perceived self-esteem differs across weight and gender, a 2 (scenario weight: skinny/obese) x 2 (scenario gender: male/female) between-subjects factorial Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used. There was a significant main effect for scenario weight, F (1,140) ＝ 7.44, MSE ＝ 1.49, p ＝ .007, η2p ＝ .05, with higher perceived self-esteem levels for those who are skinny (M ＝ 3.79, SE ＝ .14) compared to those who are obese (M ＝ 3.24, SE ＝ .14). There was a trending main effect for scenario gender, F (1,140) ＝ 3.14, MSE ＝ 1.49, p ＝ .078, η2p ＝ .02, with higher self-esteem levels for females (M ＝ 3.69, SE ＝ .14) than males (M ＝ 3.33, SE ＝ .14). There was no significant interaction, F (1,140) ＝ .67, MSE ＝ 1.49, p ＝ .415. These findings partially support the hypothesis that perceived self-esteem differs across weight and gender. Furthermore, to assess that perceived intelligence differs across gender and food condition, a 2 (scenario gender: male/female) x 2 (food condition: [unhealthy: McDonald’s Big Mac]/[healthy: Subway Veggie Delite]), between-subjects factorial Analysis of Variance OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 7 (ANOVA) was used. There was no main effect for scenario gender, F (1,140) ＝ .70, MSE ＝ .81, p ＝ .41. There was a main effect for food condition, F (1,140) ＝ 11.74, MSE ＝ .81, p ＝ .001, η2p ＝ .08, with higher perceived intelligence levels for those who opted for Subway Veggie Delite (M ＝ 4.13, SE ＝ .11) than those who opted for McDonald’s Big Mac (M ＝ 3.61, SE ＝ .11). Finally, there was a trending interaction, as depicted in Figure 1, F (1,140) ＝ 3.78, MSE ＝ .81, p ＝ .054, η2p ＝ .03. A Bonferroni post-hoc revealed that females who ordered Subway Veggie Delite (M ＝ 4.33, SE ＝ .15) received the highest intelligence scores (perceived to be most intelligent) followed by males who ordered Subway Veggie Delite (M ＝ 3.92, SE ＝ .15). Females who ordered the McDonald’s Big Mac (M ＝ 3.53, SE ＝ .15) received the lowest intelligence scores (perceived to be the ones with the least intelligence) than males who ordered the McDonald’s Big Mac (M ＝ 3.70, SE ＝ .15). These findings partially support the hypothesis that perceived intelligence is affected by gender and food condition. Discussion The purpose of this study was to investigate perceived self-esteem and intelligence across gender, weight, and food condition to better understand the stigmatism around obesity. Our hypotheses from the primary analysis, perceived self-esteem differs across gender and weight condition was partially supported by the results, indicating that people of different gender and/or weight condition are stereotyped to have different levels of self-esteem. Although there was no significant interaction found between gender and weight condition, there was a significant main effect for gender and weight condition, which resulted in a partially supported hypothesis. This outcome appears to be consistent with the literature in such that previous findings support that young adults who are obese tend to have diminished self-esteem (Goldfield et. al., 2015). Although Goldfield and his colleagues did not specifically study perceived self- OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 8 esteem, they did observe the self-reported self-esteem levels in obese people and normal weight people. Another study revealed that obese people with high levels of internalized weight bias are likely to have insecurities about their body image, and in turn have low self-esteem (Durso & Latner, 2008). In addition to weight condition as a factor of perceived self-esteem, gender appears to play a crucial role in weight prejudice. In their study, Israel and Ivanova (2002) concluded that women are reported to have lower self-esteem than men. Combining the results from previous studies with the current study, it can be deduced that weight bias affects the way people view self-esteem in the obese population. Thus, our primary analysis is supported. Our secondary analysis, perceived intelligence differs across gender and food condition, was partially supported by the results, indicating that people of different gender and those who opt for unhealthy food instead of healthy food are stereotyped to have lower intelligence scores. Even though there was no significant main effect for scenario gender, there was a significant main effect for food condition and a trending interaction between scenario gender and food condition. Consistent with prior empirical evidence, Weiner, Perry, and Magnusson (1988) demonstrated that obese people are perceived as eating “inappropriate” foods that are high in fat and sugar. Therefore, they are less likely to be associated as highly intelligent. Moreover, even though obese people are smart, they are perceived to be not as intelligent as normal weight people (Crandall, 1994). Furthermore, Neumark-Sztainer, Story, and Harris (1999) demonstrated that teachers have negative attitudes towards people who are obese. They often tend to give lower grades to obese individuals as they perceive them to not be successful in their careers. Additionally, women typically score low in emotional intelligence and high in depressive symptoms, which seems to be inconsistent with the results found in the current study (Gomez- Baya, Mendoza, Paino, & Gaspar de Matos, 2016). Possible reasons this study found OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 9 insignificant effect for gender could be that the participants were college students (college students typically stand for gender equality). Nevertheless, the consistent data we did find provides enough evidence for this study to be at least partially supported. Limitations Several limitations of this study should be mentioned. Although we administered the survey randomly to college students, it was still not representative sample of the diverse population on this college campus. Distributing surveys in different areas of the campus while also increasing the sample size would have resulted in more significant results with minimal confounding variables. Since the experimenter witnesses the participants taking the surveys, it increases the chance for demand characteristics or participant bias. In addition, there was variability in administering the surveys as different people were responsible for giving out to the participants at various times in a month-long time span which could have led to instrumental error. Having different survey distributors passing out surveys at different times of the month allows for confounds as each distributor has their own way of administering the survey. Possible confounds could be history confounds as some traumatic event (death in the family, accident, etc.) might have occurred in the participant’s life that made them take the survey a certain way when otherwise they might have answered differently. Furthermore, it should be noted that any form of self-reporting, in this case, surveys, is open to response bias. Participants can false report on the surveys, which in turn provides the researchers with meaningless data. Nevertheless, self-reports are considered to be the most cost- effective way of gathering data in psychological research. As our study was conducted on a limited budget, our researchers had to rely on self-reporting in order to aggregate data. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 10 Regarding the topic of surveys, having more than five questions on the survey would have been beneficial to minimize error. Five questions does not give as reliable and concrete data as a ten or fifteen question survey would give. Implications and Future Direction The results imply that skinny individuals are perceived to have higher self-esteem than obese individuals. Moreover, our results revealed a trending main effect that females are perceived to have higher self-esteem than males, which supported our overall hypothesis that self-esteem perception would differ based on gender, but did not support our specific hypothesis that males would be perceived to have higher self-esteem than females. This could mean that college students see females to be just as driven or even more driven than their male classmates. If the results were significantly different (not just trending main effect), we could conclude that the perceptions differed based on gender among college students compared to the general population because historically, males are typically perceived to have higher self-esteem, intelligence, etc. than females. This study reflects the thought of college students, who typically value gender equality. In addition, the results from the second analysis imply that both males and females are seen as equally intelligent as they did not significantly differ in perceived intelligence scores. However, people who choose healthy food options are considered to be more intelligent than those who choose unhealthy food options. A plausible reason could be that healthy food is more expensive than unhealthy food, and only the people who are more educated (higher income) are more likely to purchase the pricier (healthy) food. Therefore, people who are highly educated tend to be associated as more intelligent. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 11 If this study were to be replicated, careful measures should be taken to increase external validity as this study was only conducted at a single university. Expanding the research participation to nearby institutions would not only increase the external validity, but also enables a more diverse population to participate in the study. Gathering participants from various demographics (age, occupation, income, etc.) could potentially produce valuable data that could be used to address the weight bias issue. Ultimately, the results from this study could aid research areas in social sciences (psychology, sociology, etc.) in better understanding the prevalence of weight and gender stigmatization, bias, and stereotypes. Scientific research such as this study could potentially be useful in alleviating discrimination in the society. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 12 References Crandall, C. S. (1994). Prejudice Against Fat People: Ideology and Self-Interest. Personality and Social Psychology, 66(5), 882-894. Durso, L. E., & Latner, J. D. (2008). Understanding Self-Directed Stigma: Development of the Weight Bias Internalization Scale. Obesity, 16(Suppl. 2), S80–S86 Goffman I. (1963). Stigma: Notes on the Management of Spoiled Identity. Prentice Hall, NJ: Englewood Cliffs. Goldfield et. al. (2015). Effects of Aerobic Training, Resistance Training, or Both on Psychological Health in Adolescents with Obesity: The HEARTY Randomized Controlled Trial. Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 83(6), 1123 – 1135. Israel, A. C., Ivanova M. Y. (2002). Global and Dimensional Self-Esteem in Preadolescent and Early Adolescent Children Who Are Overweight: Age and Gender Differences. Eating Disorders, 31(4), 424 – 429. Lieberman, D. L., Tybur, J. M., Latner, J. D. (2012). Disgust Sensitivity, Obesity Stigma, and Gender: Contamination Psychology Predicts Weight Bias for Women, Not Men. Obesity Research, 20(9), 1803 – 1814. Ogden, J., Bandara, I., Cohen, H., Farmer, D., Hardie, J., Minas, H., Moore, J., Qureshi, S., Walter, F., Whitehead, M. (2001). General practitioners’ and patients’ models of obesity: whose problem is it? Patient Education and Counseling. 44(3), 227 – 233. Puhl, R. and Brownell, K. D. (2001). Bias, Discrimination, and Obesity. Obesity Research, 9(12), 788 – 805. Teixeira, F. V., Pais-Ribeiro, J. L., Maia, A. (2015). A qualitative study of GP’s views towards obesity: are they fighting or giving up? Public Health. 129(3), 218 – 225. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 13 Vartanian, L. R. (2010). Disgust and perceived control in attitudes toward obese people. International Journal of Obesity, 34(8), 1302 – 1307. Weiner, B., Perry, R. P., Magnusson, J. (1988). An Attributional Analysis of Reactions to Stigmas. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 55(5), 738–748. OBESITY STIGMA: INTELLIGENCE AND SELF-ESTEEM 14 5 4.5 4 3.5 3 2.5 2 1.5 1 0.5 0 McDonald′s Subway Male Female Scenario Gender Figure 1. Perceived intelligence mean scores as a function of scenario gender and food condition. Error bars represent standard error of the mean. Perceived Intelligence (Mean Scores). The second hypothesis i did wrong and you would have to correct it

For This or a Similar Paper Click To Order Now