Do children want skinny friends? The role of ‘weight’ in children’s friendship preferences and intergroup attitudes
This study examined developmental attitudes towards underweight stimuli using two different measures. Children aged 5 - 11 firstly attributed positive and negative traits to images of underweight, averageweight and overweight stimuli. A second measure investigated picture preference of the same stimuli for 3 different contexts (Total N=151). The trait attribution task revealed that weight bias overrode gender bias amongst female participants of all ages; girls significantly preferred underweight images to average-weight and overweight images. In the picture preference task, preferences for the underweight stimuli were given by both male and female 5 to 7 year olds, when selecting which stimuli they would have as a 'friend' or to 'take home to play'.
Item Type | Article |
---|---|
Keywords | underweight; children; weight bias; trait attribution; body type |
Departments, Centres and Research Units | Psychology |
Date Deposited | 22 Jul 2015 12:48 |
Last Modified | 04 Jul 2017 12:43 |