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Social Interactions of Obese and Nonobese Women
Author(s) -
Miller Carol T.,
Rothblum Esther D.,
Barbour Linda,
Brand Pamela A.,
Felicio Diane
Publication year - 1990
Publication title -
journal of personality
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.082
H-Index - 144
eISSN - 1467-6494
pISSN - 0022-3506
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-6494.1990.tb00234.x
Subject(s) - psychology , physical attractiveness , converse , obesity , attractiveness , affect (linguistics) , stigma (botany) , social stigma , clinical psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology , medicine , psychiatry , endocrinology , geometry , mathematics , communication , human immunodeficiency virus (hiv) , psychoanalysis , family medicine
The stigma associated with obesity is likely to limit the opportunities obese women have to develop social skills This hypothesis was tested by having obese ( n = 15) and nonobese ( n = 22) women converse on the telephone with college students who were unaware of the women's weights Ratings made by judges who listened to the women's contributions to the conversations but who were unaware of their weights showed that obesity was negatively related to judgments about the women's likability, social skills, and physical attractiveness The telephone partners of obese women rated the women and themselves more negatively than did the partners of nonobese women Obese and nonobese women generally did not differ in their evaluations of their own and their telephone partners' behavior, and they also did not differ on a measure of social self‐esteem These findings suggest that there are real differences in the social behavior of obese and nonobese women and that these differences affect the impressions formed by those with whom they interact