title: Overweight people have low levels of implicit weight bias, but overweight nations have high levels of implicit weight bias.
abstract: Although a greater degree of personal obesity is associated with weaker negativity toward overweight people on both explicit (i.e., self-report) and implicit (i.e., indirect behavioral) measures, overweight people still prefer thin people on average. We investigated whether the national and cultural context - particularly the national prevalence of obesity - predicts attitudes toward overweight people independent of personal identity and weight status. Data were collected from a total sample of 338,121 citizens from 71 nations in 22 different languages on the Project Implicit website (https://implicit.harvard.edu/) between May 2006 and October 2010. We investigated the relationship of the explicit and implicit weight bias with the obesity both at the individual (i.e., across individuals) and national (i.e., across nations) level. Explicit weight bias was assessed with self-reported preference between overweight and thin people; implicit weight bias was measured with the Implicit Association Test (IAT). The national estimates of explicit and implicit weight bias were obtained by averaging the individual scores for each nation. Obesity at the individual level was defined as Body Mass Index (BMI) scores, whereas obesity at the national level was defined as three national weight indicators (national BMI, national percentage of overweight and underweight people) obtained from publicly available databases. Across individuals, greater degree of obesity was associated with weaker implicit negativity toward overweight people compared to thin people. Across nations, in contrast, a greater degree of national obesity was associated with stronger implicit negativity toward overweight people compared to thin people. This result indicates a different relationship between obesity and implicit weight bias at the individual and national levels.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America ; Department of Communication and Economics, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Reggio Emilia, Italy.
authors.forename: Maddalena
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Marini
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Natarajan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Sriram
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany.
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Schnabel
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Warsaw University, Warsaw, Poland.
authors.forename: Norbert
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Maliszewski
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, San Diego State University, San Diego, California, United States of America.
authors.forename: Thierry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Devos
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, Sweden.
authors.forename: Bo
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Ekehammar
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Reinout
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Wiers
authors.affiliation: Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China.
authors.forename: Cai
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: HuaJian
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest, Hungary.
authors.forename: Mónika
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Somogyi
authors.affiliation: Ferris University, Yokohama, Japan.
authors.forename: Kimihiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shiomura
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Simone
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Schnall
authors.affiliation: Faculdade de Psicologia e de Ciências da Educação, Universidade do Porto, Porto, Portugal.
authors.forename: Félix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Neto
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Beer Sheva, Israel.
authors.forename: Yoav
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bar-Anan
authors.affiliation: Department of Applied Psychology, University of Padova, Padova, Italy.
authors.forename: Michelangelo
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Vianello
authors.affiliation: Instituto Electoral Veracruzano, Xalapa, Mexico.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ayala
authors.affiliation: Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Autónoma del Estado de Morelos, Cuernavaca, Morelos, México.
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Dorantes
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Baruch College-City University of New York, New York, NY.
authors.forename: Jaihyun
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Park
authors.affiliation: London Business School, Regent's Park, London, UK.
authors.forename: Selin
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kesebir
authors.affiliation: Brain Institute Federal, University of Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Rio Grande do Norte, Brazil.
authors.forename: Antonio
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pereira
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Transilvania University of Brasov, Brasov, Romania.
authors.forename: Bogdan
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Tulbure
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Division of Psychological Assessment, University of Salzburg, Salzburg, Austria.
authors.forename: Tuulia
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Ortner
authors.affiliation: University of South Carolina, Sloan College, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America.
authors.forename: Irena
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Stepanikova
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, United States of America.
authors.forename: Anthony G
authors.initials: AG
authors.lastname: Greenwald
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, Virginia, United States of America.
authors.forename: Brian A
authors.initials: BA
authors.lastname: Nosek
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D001835:Body Weight; D005260:Female; D005843:Geography; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009341:Negativism; D050177:Overweight / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000523:psychology*; D011287:Prejudice; D012649:Self Concept; D012938:Social Perception; D013240:Stereotyping; D055815:Young Adult