Weight bias 2.0: the effect of perceived weight change on performance evaluation and the moderating role of anti-fat bias

Yueting Ji, Qianyao Huang, Haiyang Liu and Caleb Phillips

LSE Research Online Documents on Economics from London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library

Abstract: Overweight employees are viewed as lazy, slow, inactive, and even incapable. Even if such attributes are false, this perspective can seriously undermine others' evaluation of their work performance. The current study explores a broader phenomenon of weight bias that has an effect on weight change. In a longitudinal study with a time lag of 6 months, we surveyed 226 supervisor-employee dyads. We found supervisor perceptions of employee weight change notably altered their evaluation of the employee performance from Time 1, especially following low vs. high Time-1 performance evaluation. Meanwhile, the moderating effects among different levels of supervisor anti-fat bias functioned as boundary conditions for such performance evaluation alteration. In particular, the interaction between the Time-1 performance evaluation and the impact of supervisor perception of employee weight change on the Time-2 performance evaluation was significant only if supervisors held a stronger anti-fat bias.

Keywords: anti-fat bias; performance evaluation; phase-shifting perspective; weight bias; weight change (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: J50 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 16 pages
Date: 2021-07-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-isf and nep-ore
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Published in Frontiers in Psychology, 16, July, 2021, 12. ISSN: 1664-1078

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ehl:lserod:111589

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