In the United States it is illegal for employers to discriminate against an employee or potential employee on the basis of many physical attributes. However, weight discrimination is only illegal in one state (Michigan) and six cities: Binghamton, NY, Washington, DC, Madison, WI, Urbana, IL, San Francisco, CA and Santa Cruz, CA (Minnesota Department of Human Rights, 2010). Weight discrimination in the workplace is becoming more of a problem as more of the population is considered overweight or obese (Wilkie, 2012). In fact, the CDC reports that almost 35% of American adults are obese (CDC, 2012). Weight discrimination in the workplace could be the result of two applied social psychological principles: the halo effect and fundamental attribution error (Coutts & Gruman, 2012). This blog post will address these concepts and how they relate to discrimination of overweight and obese people in the workplace.
Evidence has shown that overweight and obese people are at are a disadvantage in the workplace in terms of pay, hire-ability, perceived desirable traits, complexity of assignments, opportunities for advancement and on the job disciplinary actions when compared to average-sized counterparts (Fikkan & Rothblum, 2005). These discrepancies could be related to the halo effect. According to Coutts and Gruman (2012), the halo effect is our tendency to draw a conclusion about an individual on the basis of a single characteristic, in this example, physique. The halo effect has been previously reported by Lowenberg and Conrad as the most common source of bias in employee performance reviews (Coutts & Gruman). According to the halo effect, an overweight or obese employee could potentially be viewed by their supervisor or colleagues only in terms of their physique leaving their other qualities to be overshadowed even if those qualities are enthusiasm, dependability, intelligence, and so on. Additionally, the halo effect may be more pronounced in cases where the employee and supervisor have few things in common as per the “similar-to-me effect” (Coutts & Gruman, 2012, p. 221). In the example of weight discrimination among overweight or obese people, an overweight employee could be judged less competent by their average-sized supervisor and contribute to biased performance assessments.
Not only do we have a tendency to judge others based on our first impressions we also seek to understand why a person may have certain characteristics or why they choose to behave in a certain way. This is referred to as attribution (Coutts & Gruman, 2012). Attribution is essentially a way to understand underlying factors that contribute to a behavior. According to Coutts and Gruman, these factors can be internal or external. Internal factors are controlled within the individual versus external factors in which the behavior is attributed to something out of the individual’s control (Coutts & Gruman). When defining the causal relationship between internal and external factors we tend to more easily establish a relationship between internal factors and causation compared to external, situational factors which is called fundamental attribution error (Coutts & Gruman). In the example above, we are more likely to attribute an obese person’s weight problems to laziness or lack of motivation as opposed to looking at situational factors that may contribute to the issue like an inability to fit on the seat of the recumbent bike at the gym or undiagnosed depression despite multiple contacts with healthcare providers. When the assumption is made that weight is a caused by an internal, thus controllable factor, the obese person is subjected to judgment from others including prospective employers and colleagues.
Recent reports have suggested that the American public supports laws to prohibit discrimination on the basis of weight (Suh, et al., 2014); however, it remains unclear how effective laws are at preventing discrimination on the basis of size since very few complaints are filed even in places where laws protect against weight discrimination (Minnesota Department of Human Rights, 2010). For me, I believe that laws may help, but the more significant issues at hand are the halo effect and fundamental attribution error. Although in some cases being overweight or obese is centered on choices made by those individuals that is not always the case. It may not be possible to teach individuals to gather their first impression of someone from a broad view of all qualities; however, in the workplace assessment tools could be fitted to assure a supervisor is confronted with multiple facets of skill assessment to potentially avoid bias related to weight. The obesity epidemic will only get worse if we do not provide resources for healthy alternatives to everyone like gainful employment (Ross, 2013). Interestingly, recent evidence suggests that those that fall victim to weight discrimination are MORE likely to be obese at follow up contrary to the viewpoint that weight discrimination would serve as a motivator for weight loss (Puhl & Heuer, 2010; Sutin & Terracciano, 2013). In 2009, Lillis and colleagues reported success with acceptance and mindfulness training among patients in a weight loss center to cope with weight stigma. Although I believe it is important for these patients to cope, I think the mindfulness and acceptance training might be better suited for the average-weight persons placing blame on these obese and overweight individuals. Specifically aiming these programs at executives and other company leaders may help to improve workplace discrimination on the basis of weight by making hiring managers more aware of the halo effect and fundamental attribution error.
The obesity epidemic in America is not going away. As a culture we need to change our attitudes toward the epidemic so that discrimination does not further leach into our workplaces. Addressing the halo effect and fundamental attribution error is the first step in mitigating the issue of workplace discrimination of the overweight and obese. The assumption that one physical characteristic tells all is setting our capitalist society up to miss out on a multitude of strong, conscientious workers. Personally, I have to wonder, is my BMI weighing down my career?
References:
Batalion, N. (2010). Obesity: Bias, Stigma, Discrimination – Image Retrieved from http://www.healingtalks.com/natural-health-2/weight-problems/obesity-bias-stigma-discrimination/
Centers for Disease Control. (2012). Adult overweight and obesity. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/obesity/adult/index.html
Coutts, L. & Gruman, J. (2012). Applying social psychology to organizations, in Applied Social Psychology: Understanding and Addressing Social and Practical Problems (2nd ed.) Schneider, Gruman, & Coutts (Eds.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
Fikkan, J. & Rothblum, E. (2005). Weight bias in employment, in Weight Bias: Nature, Consequences and Remedies.K. Brownell, R. Puhl, M. Schwartz & L. Rudd (Eds.) NY: Guilford Press.
Lillis, J., Hayes, S., Bunting, K. & Masuda, A. (2009). Teaching acceptance and mindfulness to improve the lives of the obese: A preliminary test of a theoretical model. Annals of Behavioral Medicine. 37(1): 58-69.
Minnesota Department of Human Rights (2013). Weight bias laws: Tipping the scales against prejudice? Retrieved from http://mn.gov/mdhr/education/articles/rs10_2weightlaws.html
Puhl, R. & Heuer, C. (2010). Obesity stigma: Important considerations for public health. American Journal of Public Health. 100(6): 1019-1028.
Ross, C. (2013). I see fat people. Real Healing. Retrieved from https://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/real-healing/201308/i-see-fat-people
Suh, Y, Puhl, R., Liu, S. & Milici, F. (2014). Support for laws to prohibit weight discrimination in the United States: Public attitudes from 2011 to 2013. Obesity. 22(8): 1872-1879.
Sutin, A. & Terracciano, A. (2013). Perceived weight discrimination and obesity. PLoS ONE. 8(7): e70048 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0070048.
Wilkie, C. (2012). Obesity discrimination on the job provokes dispute over best remedy. Huffington Post. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/04/obesity-discrimination_n_1939385.html
I would like to cite this article who is the author?
I loved reading this post because I work in a workplace where this topic is extremely evident. I work at a gym. Gyms are probable one of the largest forms of a judgmental organization. If you were to look around my workplace you would notice that all of the employees are buff. I always feel I am the exception there because while I am fit from being a dancer, I actually hate to work out. I have a story from the first time I met one of my managers. I was new and trying to learn about fitness and the training director asked if I wanted my BMI taken. I am tiny so I had no fear of what my number would be so I agreed. I don’t remember the percentage exactly but it was not bad. The thing that I then found appalling was my manager heard what my percentage was and stated how he would not date a girl who was over so and so percentage (and I was right on the line). I thought that was terrible, especially because I know I am small so he was expecting way too much. He even then said that he has told girlfriends in the past he would break up with them if they didn’t lose weight. THIS is the attitudes of people who work in a gym organization. This is clearly demonstrated by the Halo effect. These workers, specifically the manager, was so consumed by the impression of someone’s physical appearance that it completely covered their real self and the value of the person’s traits. It is apparent why overweight people have not been hired in the gym, when the one doing the hiring clearly displays a bias demonstrated by the Halo effect. I feel that discrimination against weight could be beneficial in many organizations.
References
Cherry, K. (n.d.). What Is the Halo Effect? Retrieved February 28, 2015, from http://psychology.about.com/od/socialpsychology/f/halo-effect.htm
Nice post. I have a few questions and comments to add.
You say, “in the workplace assessment tools could be fitted to assure a supervisor is confronted with multiple facets of skill assessment to potentially avoid bias related to weight.” What type of tools might you be alluding to? Removing bias completely would be to remove the human completely. Bias is integral to our person as respiration is to life. This has been found true by research from Greenwald, McGhee, and Schwartz (1998) in their classic development of the Implicit Association Test. You can play around with it here. It’s actually pretty cool to see how bias you are. It’s merely impossible to not be bias in some way as far as I can tell.
This concept is furthered by Tajfel and Turner’s (1989) social identity theory—whereby the sense of self is founded by membership in particular social groups and furthered by social categorization through in and out groups. Naturally a tendency to support or maintain self-esteem requires the support and bias towards the in-group (the group you’re apart of) to best support the self-image. This, in my own opinion, is one of the stronger social psychology theories.
However, having a bias and discriminating are two different things. Discrimination is the negative use (as comparative to others) of bias or prejudice of a particular group. The line is thin between holding a bias and acting on it—as the implicit association test proves.
The interesting thing, in my opinion, is that we cannot separate ourselves from our bias, opinions, social identity, personal identity, personality, styles, and demeanor without voiding ourselves completely of the situation or position—that is by removing the human component. In that light, the instance of laws, rules, regulations against discrimination seeks to eradicate such injustice in the general sense through the control of obvious negative actions against such groups. It is extremely difficult to say that
A few questions:
Do you believe you can not be bias? If so, how?
You state that instead of obese patients receiving mindfulness and acceptance training those that are “average-weight” should receive such training—is there any evidence to support this notion? If so, does it specifically combat bias of those who are overweight? Are there any studies out there that specifically target such a bias?
Should employers equally employ both obese and average-weight individuals? If one is “average” weight, shouldn’t that qualification represent equal opportunity at it’s finest form?
Great topic by the way!
Greenwald, A. G., McGhee, D. E., & Schwartz, J. L. K. (1998). Measuring individual differences in implicit cognition: The implicit association test. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74(6), 1464-1480. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.74.6.1464
Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1986). The social identity theory of inter-group behavior. In S. Worchel & L. W. Austin (Eds.), Psychology of intergroup relations. Chicago, IL: Nelson-Hall.