Thinking About Weight: Growth vs Fixed Weight Mindsets in Perceptions of Overweight Individuals

Abstract

Weight bias reflects prejudice against overweight individuals. Weight bias interacts with the domains of gender, race, and social class, while also affecting how people develop weight self-schemas. Differing perceptions of control may influence how people view weight, making weight bias more prevalent. Primary control essentially focuses on the action of individuals to influence their results. Secondary control focuses on the belief in external factors such as fate, to reinterpret results. Mindsets, as control beliefs, influence the way individuals handle weight and its management. Fixed mindsets support weight being something people cannot control, while growth mindsets support weight being something that people can control. Weight bias, weight stigma, perceptions of control and mindsets come together to influence perceptions of individuals, which in turn leads to prejudice. The Stereotype Content Model allows comprehensively measuring perceptions of groups through warmth and competence ratings. Participants (N = 477) rated different groups (including the obese group) based on warmth, competence, sympathy, disgust, envy, respect, and blame (control and responsibility). According to the current study, the Obese group fell within the hypothesized low competence section but did not fall within low warmth as hypothesized. Priming individuals with fixed mindsets, or generally having a fixed mindset did not significantly generate warmer scores for the Obese group. Finally, fixed and growth mindsets found no difference in blame (control and responsibility) scores. Limitations suggest future directions.