Bias against overweight job applicants: Further explorations of when and why

Causal effect of obesity on the probability of employment in women in Turkey

This study aims to investigate the causal effect of obesity on the employment probability of women in Turkey via the instrumental variable approach by using data from the 2018 Turkey and Demographic Health Survey. Obesity prevalence in the area of living and the overweight status of the oldest child, which are the most common types of instruments seen in the literature, are used as instruments. Consistent with the OLS result, the 2SLS estimate indicates that obese women are statistically significantly less likely to be employed when the overweight status of the child is used as an instrument. On the other hand, the statistically significant effect of obesity disappears when the area level obesity prevalence is used as the instrument. In addition, obesity in women decreases the likelihood of employment in the services sector and full-time jobs and employment with social security. Although the results of this study do not indicate the source of the effect found, the presence of a causal relationship for women should not be ignored when the economic burden of obesity for Turkey is considered.

Having the right face for the job: The effect of facial width‐to‐height ratio on job selection preferences

Prior research has found that various job candidate characteristics can influence hiring decisions. The current work used experimental methods to test how a novel, appearance-based cue known as a facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) can bias hiring preferences. A first study provides evidence for our initial hypothesis: people believed high fWHR candidates would be a better fit for blue-collar jobs compared with low fWHR candidates, who were in turn favoured for white-collar jobs. A second study replicates this initial finding and extends it by demonstrating that the effect of fWHR-derived trait inferences of strength and intelligence on hireability predictably varies by job type. Finally, in a third study, we find that this bias reverses when traditional stereotypes of blue-collar and white-collar jobs requiring physicality and intellect are subverted, finding that perceptions of the fit between face type and presumed job requirements matter most for hiring preferences. Together, these findings demonstrate how a seemingly subtle appearance-based cue can have robust implications for hiring.

Comparison of Perceived Weight Discrimination between Polish and German Patients Underwent Bariatric Surgery or Endoscopic Method versus Conservative Treatment for Morbid Obesity: An International Multicenter Study

Objectives: The aim of this study was to compare the level of discrimination among patients with obesity living in Poland and Germany. Methods: This was a retrospective cross-sectional international multicenter survey study including 564 adult participants treated for morbid obesity at selected healthcare facilities in Germany (210 patients) and in Poland (354 patients). Discrimination was evaluated using a custom-made questionnaire based on the related literature. Results: The level of obesity discrimination did not differ between German and Polish patients (p = 0.4282). The presence of obesity was reported to be associated to a large or a very large extent with the feeling of social exclusion and discrimination by 46.63% of German participants and 42.09% of Polish ones (p = 0.2934). The mean level of discrimination related to the lack of employment was higher in patients who underwent bariatric surgery or endoscopic method than in those who underwent conservative treatment (for Germany: 2.85 ± 1.31 (median, 3) vs. 2.08 ± 1.31 (median, 1), p = 0.002; for Poland: 2.43 ± 1.15 (median, 2) vs. 1.93 ± 1.15 (median, 1), p = 0.005). The level of discrimination was associated with sex, age, the degree of obesity, and treatment-related weight loss (p < 0.05). Conclusions: Our findings confirm that obesity significantly affects the social and economic well-being of patients. There is a great need to reduce weight stigma and to take measures to alleviate the socioeconomic and psychological burden of obesity.

The relationship between body mass index and income: Using genetic variants from HUNT as instrumental variables

Several studies have estimated effects of body mass index (BMI) on labour market outcomes, and these studies have mixed findings. A significant challenge has been to adequately control for omitted variables, selection, reverse causality, and measurement error. We examine the impact of BMI on income using genetic variants as instrumental variables for BMI. Individual-level pre-tax income from tax records was merged with health survey data containing measured height and weight, and data on genetic variants. The analyses were stratified by sex and a variety of methods were used to explore the sensitivity and validity of the instrumental variable (IV) strategy. For females we found that BMI had a negative effect on the logarithm of income. The effect estimated from the IV models (-0.02) was larger than the effect estimated from naïve ordinary least squares regressions (-0.01). For males, the coefficients for the effect of BMI on income were imprecise, and both positive and negative coefficients were estimated depending on the estimation method. Our results suggest that females are susceptible to reduced income levels following increased BMI.

Do employers discriminate against obese employees? Evidence from individuals who are simultaneously self-employed and working for an employer

We test whether the lower wages of obese employees result from employer discrimination using a novel empirical strategy. Using data from two nationally representative surveys from the US, we analyze the wages of individuals who are simultaneously self-employed and working for an employer. While lower productivity and customer discrimination against obese individuals may affect wages in both types of jobs, employer discrimination cannot affect the wages of solo entrepreneurs. Our estimates suggest that, even after controlling for productivity (proxied by their concurrent wage in self-employment), white women (men) who are obese earn 11.4% (9.7%) less than their healthy-weight counterparts in their paid employment jobs. We also find that white women (but not men) who are overweight earn 9.1% less than their healthy-weight counterparts. We do not find any evidence of significant bodyweight discrimination among black and Hispanic workers. These results suggest that white workers, especially white women, are likely to face bodyweight discrimination in their workplaces. We report the results for a series of robustness checks to rule out alternative explanations, such as reverse causality, differences in healthcare costs, and occupation-specific customer discrimination.

Uncovering men's stereotype content (warmth and competence) associated with a representative range of male body size categories

Research indicates that 40 % of men experience weight-related stigmatization. Yet perceptions of body size continue to be understudied in men and the stereotype content of men's weight status remains largely unknown. Grounded in Stereotype Content Model, the research aims to uncover men's stereotype content associated with distinct body sizes. A pilot study tested the methodological design using a representative measure of BMI-specific images among a sample of undergraduate men (N = 80). Study 1 included the BMI-specific images to assess stereotype content among a broad online sample (N = 142) and explored how participant BMI relates to such perceptions. Study 2 included images of real men to increase the ecological validity of our findings (N = 152). We also included empathy and protestant ethics to examine possible interaction effects. Results revealed that normal to overweight men scored highest on warmth and competence, while underweight and obese classes were perceived less favorably and, evidently, stereotype perceptions were increasingly severe with adiposity. Empathy moderated evaluations of warmth toward stigmatized groups, and protestant ethics moderated warmth appraisals for underweight and normal weight targets but did not influence perceptions of competence. Overall, weight stereotype content should be considered when understanding stigma-related experiences in men.

Predictors of parental leave support: Bad news for (big) dads and a policy for equality

Parenthood increases gender inequality in paid (employment) and unpaid labor (e.g., caretaking). New parental leave plans aim to increase gender equality by reducing managerial discretion and offering gender-neutral benefits. However, coworkers may undermine these inclusive aims, particularly if they show variable support per employee characteristics. Thus, we examine why and how employee gender and obesity interactively predict coworkers’ support for parental leave and test an intervention to increase equality. Three between-subjects experiments with working American adults ( Ns = 133–252) indicate that obesity decreases coworkers’ parental leave support for men, but increases coworkers’ parental leave support for women; these effects are replicated and mediated by coworkers’ caregiving ability expectations of the employees, inequalities that are reduced when parental leave is made the default. Discussion focuses on our results’ implications for theory, practice, and for men and women’s paid and unpaid labor, including recommendations for parental leave policy design and delivery to increase equality.

Safety in Beauty

Abstract. Individuals regularly exhibit antisocial responses after social exclusion. In four unregistered studies (1a, 1b, 2, and 3) and one preregistered experiment (Study 4), we tested the hypothesis that the excluder’s physical attractiveness reduces the relationship between social exclusion and negative responding. Results showed that exclusion by a highly attractive source caused less aggressive and more prosocial responses than exclusion by a less attractive source (Studies 1–3). The interaction effect was mediated by perceived likeability of the excluding person (Study 3). The preregistered experiment did not confirm the interactive effect between exclusion and attractiveness (Study 4); however, exploratory analyses indicated the effect on pro- (but not antisocial) responding. Inconsistent findings as well as the theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

The Effects of Messages about the Causes of Obesity on Disciplinary Action Decisions for Overweight Employees

We investigated the impact of messages about the causes of obesity (controllable or uncontrollable) on the disciplinary action consequences selected for obese employees in response to a work-related mistake. Participants read about either the controllable or uncontrollable causes of obesity before reviewing an ostensible employee file that included a description of an employee mistake. Depending on condition, the file contained a photo of the employee that either depicted them as obese or average weight. Participants were more willing to withhold a raise or promotion from an obese employee than from an average-weight employee. Further, there was little evidence that the messages about the causes of obesity affected participants' perceived control and self-efficacy for healthy behaviors.

Body Weight Can Change How Your Emotions Are Perceived

Accurately interpreting other’s emotions through facial expressions has important adaptive values for social interactions. However, due to the stereotypical social perception of overweight individuals as carefree, humorous, and light-hearted, the body weight of those with whom we interact may have a systematic influence on our emotion judgment even though it has no relevance to the expressed emotion itself. In this experimental study, we examined the role of body weight in faces on the affective perception of facial expressions. We hypothesized that the weight perceived in a face would bias the assessment of an emotional expression, with overweight faces generally more likely to be perceived as having more positive and less negative expressions than healthy weight faces. Using two-alternative forced-choice perceptual decision tasks, participants were asked to sort the emotional expressions of overweight and healthy weight facial stimuli that had been gradually morphed across six emotional intensity levels into one of two categories—“neutral vs. happy” (Experiment 1) and “neutral vs. sad” (Experiment 2). As predicted, our results demonstrated that overweight faces were more likely to be categorized as happy (i.e., lower happy decision threshold) and less likely to be categorized as sad (i.e., higher sad decision threshold) compared to healthy weight faces that had the same levels of emotional intensity. The neutral-sad decision threshold shift was negatively correlated with participant’s own fear of becoming fat, that is, those without a fear of becoming fat more strongly perceived overweight faces as sad relative to those with a higher fear. These findings demonstrate that the weight of the face systematically influences how its emotional expression is interpreted, suggesting that being overweight may make emotional expressions appear more happy and less sad than they really are.

Subtle Increases in BMI within a Healthy Weight Range Still Reduce Womens Employment Chances in the Service Sector

Using mixed design analysis of variance (ANOVA), this paper investigates the effects of a subtle simulated increase in adiposity on women's employment chances in the service sector. Employing a unique simulation of altering individuals' BMIs and the literature on "aesthetic labour", the study suggests that, especially for women, being heavier, but still within a healthy BMI, deleteriously impacts on hireability ratings. The paper explores the gendered dimension of this prejudice by asking whether female employees at the upper end of a healthy BMI range are likely to be viewed more negatively than their overtly overweight male counterparts. The paper concludes by considering the implications of these findings.

Body mass index and employment status: A new look

Earlier literature has usually modelled the impact of obesity on employment status as a binary choice (employed, yes/no). I provide new evidence on the impact of obesity on employment status by treating the dependent variable as a as a multinomial choice variable. Using data from a representative English survey, with measured height and weight on parents and children, I define employment status as one of four: working; looking for paid work; permanently not working due to disability; and, looking after home or family. I use a multinomial logit model controlling for a set of covariates. I also run instrumental variable models, instrumenting for Body Mass Index (BMI) based on genetic variation in weight. I find that BMI and obesity significantly increase the probability of "not working due to disability". The results for the other employment outcomes are less clear. My findings also indicate that BMI affects employment through its effect on health. Factors other than health may be less important in explaining the impact of BMI/obesity on employment.

Perceived weight discrimination and obesity

Weight discrimination is prevalent in American society. Although associated consistently with psychological and economic outcomes, less is known about whether weight discrimination is associated with longitudinal changes in obesity. The objectives of this research are (1) to test whether weight discrimination is associated with risk of becoming obese (Body Mass Index≥30; BMI) by follow-up among those not obese at baseline, and (2) to test whether weight discrimination is associated with risk of remaining obese at follow-up among those already obese at baseline. Participants were drawn from the Health and Retirement Study, a nationally representative longitudinal survey of community-dwelling US residents. A total of 6,157 participants (58.6% female) completed the discrimination measure and had weight and height available from the 2006 and 2010 assessments. Participants who experienced weight discrimination were approximately 2.5 times more likely to become obese by follow-up (OR = 2.54, 95% CI = 1.58-4.08) and participants who were obese at baseline were three times more likely to remain obese at follow up (OR = 3.20, 95% CI = 2.06-4.97) than those who had not experienced such discrimination. These effects held when controlling for demographic factors (age, sex, ethnicity, education) and when baseline BMI was included as a covariate. These effects were also specific to weight discrimination; other forms of discrimination (e.g., sex, race) were unrelated to risk of obesity at follow-up. The present research demonstrates that, in addition to poorer mental health outcomes, weight discrimination has implications for obesity. Rather than motivating individuals to lose weight, weight discrimination increases risk for obesity.

Does Being Attractive Always Help? Positive and Negative Effects of Attractiveness on Social Decision Making

Previous studies of organizational decision making demonstrate an abundance of positive biases directed toward highly attractive individuals. The current research, in contrast, suggests that when the person being evaluated is of the same sex as the evaluator, attractiveness hurts, rather than helps. Three experiments assessing evaluations of potential job candidates (Studies 1 and 3) and university applicants (Study 2) demonstrated positive biases toward highly attractive other-sex targets but negative biases toward highly attractive same-sex targets. This pattern was mediated by variability in participants’ desire to interact with versus avoid the target individual (Studies 1 and 2) and was moderated by participants’ level of self-esteem (Study 3); the derogation of attractive same-sex targets was not observed among people with high self-esteem. Findings demonstrate an important exception to the positive effects of attractiveness in organizational settings and suggest that negative responses to attractive same-sex targets stem from perceptions of self-threat.

Investigating the Validity of Stereotypes About Overweight Employees

Research indicates that overweight job applicants and employees are stereo-typically viewed as being less conscientiousness, less agreeable, less emotionally stable, and less extraverted than their “normal-weight” counterparts. Together, the two reported studies investigate the validity of those stereotypes by examining the relationship between body weight and four relevant personality traits (conscientiousness, agreeableness, emotional stability, extraversion) using three measures of body weight (body mass index [BMI] based on self-reported height and weight, BMI based on clinically assessed height and weight, percentage body fat assessed by bio-impedance technology) in a diverse group of 3,496 adults from the United States. There is substantial convergence between the two studies, with findings tending to refute commonly held stereotypes about the personality traits of overweight employees.