i’ve never noticed this myself…. but my boyfriend says i have tunnel vision and never notice things around me…… i did find this article interesting…
Obese shoppers more likely to experience discrimination
But less likely if sales clerks think they’re trying to lose weight
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2005-04/ru-osm033105.php
Sales clerks tend to subtly discriminate against overweight shoppers
but treat them more favorably if they perceive that the individual is
trying to lose weight, according to a study by Rice University
researchers.
The research, conducted in a large Houston shopping mall, will be
presented in a poster session at the annual conference of the Society
for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) April 15-17 in
Los Angeles. SIOP singled out the study as the most outstanding
student contribution to the conference by selecting it for the
organization’s John C. Flanagan Award.
“The results of our research revealed that although customer sales
personnel do not formally discriminate against obese customers, they
do discriminate in subtle, interpersonal ways,” said Eden King, who
was co-principal investigator of the study with Jenessa Shapiro when
they were undergraduate students at Rice. King is now a Rice
psychology graduate student, and Shapiro is a graduate student at
Arizona State University. They collaborated with Rice graduate
students Sarah Singletary and Stacey Turner and adviser Mikki Hebl,
the Radoslav Tsanoff Associate Professor of Psychology and Management.
The study was conducted in three phases: the first documented the
discrimination; the second evaluated a way to reduce the
discrimination; and the third focused on the financial repercussions
discrimination can have on businesses. The researchers used female
participants only for their study because research consistently shows
that women are judged and stigmatized on the basis of weight and
appearance more than men are, King said.
Ten average-weight Caucasian women between the ages of 19 and 28
played the role of customer in four different scenarios: an average-
weight shopper in casual attire, an average-weight shopper in
professional attire, an obese shopper (the result of a size 22
obesity prosthetic worn under the clothing) in casual attire and an
obese shopper in professional attire. Following a memorized script,
the shoppers sought assistance with picking out a birthday gift in
various stores; after each shopping experience, they filled out a
questionnaire evaluating the way they were treated by the sales
clerk. A tape recorder in their purse captured the conversations so
that the sales clerks’ tone, inflection and choice of words could be
analyzed. In addition, the researchers stationed an observer in the
store within hearing range of the shopper to provide a second opinion
of how each interaction fared by filling out a questionnaire after
each shopping experience.
Based on data from interactions in 152 stores in a large mall, the
researchers found greater levels of interpersonal discrimination
directed toward obese shoppers than toward average-weight shoppers.
The findings were based on the observers’ and customers’ reports of
the sales clerks’ eye contact, friendliness, rudeness, smile,
premature ending of the interaction, length of interaction time, and
negative language and tone. Almost three-fourths of the sales clerks
were women.
“One of the most stigmatized groups is the obese because their
problem is perceived to be controllable,” King said. She noted that
in her study, the casually dressed obese shoppers experienced more
interpersonal discrimination than the professionally dressed obese
shoppers and both the casually dressed and professionally dressed
average-weight shoppers. The professional attire implied that the
obese shopper was making an effort to improve her appearance, which
removed the justification for prejudice, King said.
The next phase of the study seemed to bear that analysis out. Seven
women between the ages of 19 and 24 (six Caucasian, one Hispanic)
took on the role of obese and non-obese shoppers, but another
variable was added: the shopper carried either a diet cola or an ice
cream drink. The diet-cola drinker called attention to her drink and
mentioned that she’s on a diet and just completed a half marathon.
The shopper with the ice cream drink also called attention to her
beverage and mentioned that she’s not on a diet and could never run a
half marathon.
Based on interactions conducted in 66 stores, interpersonal
discrimination did not differ between average-weight shoppers
regardless of whether they were carrying the diet cola or the ice
cream drink, or between obese shoppers who drank the diet beverage.
As King noted, the perception that the latter group was making an
effort to lose weight lowered the justification for discrimination
against them. The obese shoppers with the ice cream drink received
the greatest amount of interpersonal discrimination, presumably
because they fit the stereotype of overweight people as being lazy.
“When justifications for discrimination can be identified, obese
individuals receive more negative interpersonal treatment than
average-weight individuals,” King said. “Our results suggest that by
targeting and removing justifications for prejudice held by
perceivers, manifestations of interpersonal discrimination directed
at customers and/or employees can be curbed.”
The third phase of the study entailed a survey of 191 Caucasian women
recruited from an outdoor shopping arcade in the Houston metropolitan
area. The survey form asked them to evaluate their interaction with
the sales clerk, how much they had planned to spend and the amount
they actually spent at the store, and several other variables,
including the likelihood that they would shop again at the store and
recommend it to a friend. The research assistants who collected the
surveys made note of each participant’s body type as the forms were
turned in.
Obese individuals reported more interpersonal discrimination than did
average-weight individuals. Reports of greater interpersonal
discrimination were related to spending less time in the store,
spending less money than originally intended, and reduced chances of
returning to the store in the future. While these results aren’t
surprising, they serve as a reminder that businesses have not just
ethical but financial reasons to investigate the behavior of their
employees and train them to avoid discrimination.
King said the discrimination observed in her studies was manifested
in covert, interpersonal forms rather than in traditional or overt
forms, which is consistent with modern theoretical conceptualizations
of prejudice. She cautioned against interpreting the research to mean
that overweight people should manipulate the justifying mechanism of
controllability of obesity to guard against being stigmatized. “We do
not believe and would not advocate that the burden of discrimination
reduction should lie with its victims,” she said.
Hebl noted that the students’ research called attention to a
particularly harmful form of discrimination. “This is one of the
first studies in our field to show the bottom-line consequences for
organizations that discriminate against obese individuals,” she
said. “And while there are strategies that obese individuals
themselves can adopt, it may be time for organizations to take more
proactive approaches toward eliminating discrimination toward groups
that are stigmatized but not yet protected.”
For the first time in six seasons, Lifetime Television’s Project Runway will welcome a designer “with a passion for real women in the plus size market".
