Indiana University Bloomington, USA.
East Los Angeles College, Monterey Park, CA, USA.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull. 2022 Sep;48(9):1367-1381. doi: 10.1177/01461672211039981. Epub 2021 Nov 10.
Five experiments investigate the hypothesis that heavier weight individuals are denied mental agency (i.e., higher order cognitive and intentional capacities), but not experience (e.g., emotional and sensory capacities), relative to average weight individuals. Across studies, we find that as targets increase in weight, they are denied mental agency; however, target weight has no reliable influence on ascriptions of experience (Studies 1a-2b). Furthermore, the de-mentalization of heavier weight targets was associated with both disgust and beliefs about targets' physical agency (Study 3). Finally, de-mentalization affected role assignments. Heavier weight targets were rated as helpful for roles requiring experiential but not mentally agentic faculties (Study 4). Heavier weight targets were also less likely than chance to be categorized into a career when it was described as requiring mental agency (versus experience; Study 5). These findings suggest novel insights into past work on weight stigma, wherein discrimination often occurs in domains requiring mental agency.
五项实验研究了一个假设，即与平均体重的人相比，体重较重的人被否认具有心理能动性（即更高阶的认知和意向能力），但不否认具有体验能力（如情感和感官能力）。在各项研究中，我们发现，随着目标体重的增加，他们被否认具有心理能动性；然而，目标体重对体验归因没有可靠的影响（研究 1a-2b）。此外，对较重体重目标的去心理化与厌恶和对目标身体能动性的信念有关（研究 3）。最后，去心理化会影响角色分配。体重较重的目标被认为对需要体验而不是心理能动性的角色有帮助（研究 4）。当一项职业被描述为需要心理能动性（而不是体验）时，体重较重的目标比随机分类到该职业的可能性更小（研究 5）。这些发现为过去关于体重污名的研究提供了新的见解，在这些研究中，歧视往往发生在需要心理能动性的领域。
