Page 1 of 5 Weight- Based Discrimination in Occupational Hiring and Helping Behavior Viren Swami and Others University of Westminster PSY 24700: Social Psychology Professor Berlus April 18, 2022 Page 2 of 5 The article that I have chosen to summarize, Weight-Based Discrimination in occupational Hiring and Helping Behavior by Viren Swami and others, studies and compares the stigmatization of women across a range of body weights in the sense of two separate scenarios: the first one being an occupational hiring, and the second one being a helping behavior. Swami discussed the likelihood of women with a higher body mass index (BMI) of > 30 to not be hired or helped in comparison to women with an average BMI of 19-20. Primarily, research has shown that obesity stigmatization has become increasingly widespread since the early 1980’s to a point where many began to believe that obesity stigmatization has become another form of discrimination (Swami, 2008). As a result, individuals experiencing such suffer from psychological and social consequences especially within the workplace. According to Swami, it is more likely that an overweight and obese individual to be exposed to prejudice and inequity even before the interview process begins (2008). Multiple studies conducted throughout the years have shown that average weight individuals were prone to be hired for a position as well as associated with positive behaviors, whereas overweight individuals were less prone to receive a position as well as associated with negative and undesirable behaviors. Earlier studies of weight- based discrimination prior to Swami’s study mainly examined the discrimination against overweight and obese individuals. However, Swami believed that the study could have an even more confident conclusion if they also researched and studied the discrimination against emaciated and underweight individuals (Swami, 2008). The purpose of this experiment is to show that individuals who are emaciated (BMI<15) are just as likely to suffer from discrimination as are obese and overweight individuals. It is also important to study individuals within the emaciated and underweight groups due to the fact that Page 3 of 5 they are also seen as inferior when it comes to physical attractiveness in comparison to normalweight and over-weight individuals (Swami, 2008). Swami decided to conduct two experiments to test his study in which he brings male individuals who would vote for women from a range of weight categories based on their likeliness to hire them for a position as well as their likeliness to help them after a serious accident. During the first study, there were 30 British male undergraduate participants present with an average mean age of 24.9 years and a self -reported BMI mean on 23.51. They were first shown grayscale images of 50 women wearing gray leotards and leggings. To prevent any influenced judgments the heads of these women were cut from the images, so their judgments aren’t affected by facial attractiveness. Of these 50 women 10 of them belonged to each of the five BMI categories: emaciated (BMI < 15), underweight (BMI of 15- 18.5), normal (BMI of 18.5- 24.9), overweight (BMI of 25.0- 29.9), and obese (BMI >30). They were given their booklets in which they recorded their ratings. After doing so they moved onto part two of the experiment. In part two of the first experiment, the participants were told that they are now going to examine the images again and on a 9- point scale with 1 being very unlikely and 9 being very likely, they are going to rate their likeliness to hire each female for a job in sales management. (Swami, 2008). Prior to doing so they were told to assume that all of the applicants are equally qualified and have the same amount of experience. To help model this data Swami used multiple regression model. “This approach balances the amount of variance accounted for with the simplest possible regression model” (Swami, 2008, p.973). The results of this study showed participants are more likely to hire an applicant who have a BMI of 19.26. After calculating the mean rating of each weight category, the normal- Page 4 of 5 weight and underweight category were rated the highest with a mean of 5.46-5.93, following them was emaciated and overweight category with a mean of 4.13- 4.24, and lastly the obese category with a mean of 2.00. This as a result helped conclude that individuals who have slender body weight are more likely to be hired in comparison to emaciated, overweight, and obese individuals. During the second experiment, there were 28 British male undergraduate participants present with an average mean age of 20.9 years and a self -reported BMI mean on 23.08. They were shown images of women identical to those used in study 1, and given the scenario that they just witnessed a serious accident that involved a pedestrian in which they are the only witness, and they must provide a rating on a 9-point scale with 1 being very unlikely and 9 being very likely of their likelihood in interfering and helping the pedestrian involved solely based on their images and BMI. The results of this study showed that the underweight category was rated the highest with a mean of 6.05 but was very close to the rating of the normal-weight category with their mean being 5.93. Following came the overweight category which was rated significantly higher than the emaciated (M= 4.61) and obese (M=4.17) category with a mean of 5.30. This helped conclude that victims who fall within the underweight and normal-weight category are most likely to be helped in such scenarios while obese participants were least likely to be helped. Based on both studies we are able to conclude that overweight and obese individuals are less likely to be helped when hiring for a position and when being involved in an accident, and this is because these groups are highly negatively stigmatized. In addition, new studies by Swami have shown that emaciated individuals are also likely to be stigmatized against to some degree because of the stereotype that whatever is beautiful is good. Page 5 of 5 Reference: Swami, V., Chan, F., Wong, V., Furnham, A., & Tovée, M. J. (2008). Weight-based discrimination in occupational hiring and helping behavior. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 38(4), 968–981. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1559-1816.2008.00334.x