Shaping the Body Politic: Mass Media Fat-Shaming Affects Implicit Anti-Fat Attitudes.
Pers Soc Psychol Bull
; 45(11): 1580-1589, 2019 11.
Article
em En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-30982402
ABSTRACT
The human psyche is profoundly shaped by its cultural milieu; however, few studies have examined the dynamics of cultural influence in everyday life, especially when it comes to shaping people's automatic, implicit attitudes. In this quasi-experimental field study, we investigated the effect of transient, but salient, cultural messages-the pop-cultural phenomenon of celebrity "fat-shaming"-on implicit anti-fat attitudes in the population. Adopting the "copycat suicide" methodology, we identified 20 fat-shaming events in the media; next, we obtained data from Project Implicit of participants who had completed the Weight Implicit Association Test from 2004 to 2015. As predicted, fat-shaming led to a spike in women's (N=93,239) implicit anti-fat attitudes, with events of greater notoriety producing greater spikes. We also observed a general increase in implicit anti-fat attitudes over time. Although these passing comments may appear harmless, we show that feedback at the cultural level can be registered by the "body politic."
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Base de dados:
MEDLINE
Assunto principal:
Atitude
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Preconceito de Peso
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Meios de Comunicação de Massa
Idioma:
En
Ano de publicação:
2019
Tipo de documento:
Article