Copyright 1999 by the American Psychological Association, Inc.
0022-3514/99/S3.00
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
1999, Vol. 77, No. 2, 402-414
When Ideology Hurts: Effects of Belief in the Protestant Ethic and Feeling
Overweight on the Psychological Well-Being of Women
Diane M. Quinn and Jennifer Crocker
University of Michigan
Two studies addressed the relationship between Protestant ethic (PE) ideology and psychological
well-being for self-perceived overweight and normal weight women. In Study 1, PE beliefs interacted
with self-perceived weight status: For very overweight women, higher PE beliefs were related to lower
psychological well-being, whereas the opposite pattern emerged for normal weight women. The relationship of PE to well-being was not mediated by beliefs about controllability of weight or dislike of the
overweight. In Study 2, either a PE ideology or an inclusive ideology was primed within the context of
the stigma of overweight. For overweight participants, priming PE ideology led to decreased psychological well-being, whereas priming an inclusive ideology led to increased psychological well-being.
Normal weight participants were unaffected. PE ideology as a vulnerability factor for the psychological
well-being of the overweight is discussed.
overweight and normal weight people often hold overweight people personally responsible for their stigma—the extra weight is
seen as a moral transgression. This perceived responsibility for,
and control of, the stigma leads to several outcomes for those who
are overweight. First, overweight people are held accountable for
any negative outcomes resulting from their weight. For example,
Crocker, Cornwell, and Major (1993) found that although overweight, women perceived that the reason they experienced social
rejection from an attractive male was due to their weight, they did
not blame the male for his discrimination. Instead, they seemed to
feel it was justified (Crocker & Major, 1994). Second, because
weight is seen as controllable, it is more openly derogated than
other stigmas (Crandall, 1994; DeJong, 1980). "Fat jokes" are
common on television (Coleman, 1993), and the diet industry
sends constant messages that not only can people lose weight, but
they will respect themselves only if they do. Finally, there is some
evidence that, unlike members of many other stigmatized groups,
the overweight are prejudiced against their own group (Crandall,
1994; Crandall & Biernat, 1990). Crandall (1994) has shown that
both overweight and normal weight people endorse approximately
the same amount of dislike toward overweight people as a group.
Thus, whereas members of other socially stigmatized groups may
gain psychological protection by developing pride in their group
and attributing negative outcomes to illegitimate discrimination
(Crocker & Major, 1989), overweight people seem to have few of
these self-protective mechanisms.
According to a national survey (National Center for Health
Statistics, Center for Disease Control and Prevention, 1997),
Americans are becoming increasingly heavy, with 33% of adult
men and 36% of adult women now considered overweight. However, even as more people join the ranks of the overweight, the
cultural standard for beauty remains thin and fit, with the beauty
standard for women emphasizing practically unreachable emaciation (Fallon, 1990; Garner, Garfinkel, Schwartz, & Thompson,
1980; Wolf, 1991). Moreover, harsh stereotypes about those who
are overweight remain, depicting them as lazy, lacking in selfcontrol, physically unattractive, and mentally slow (Allon, 1982).
Importantly, overweight people suffer from a variety of negative
outcomes related to their weight status, including discrimination in
employment, housing, and education, as well as being considered
less attractive (Allon, 1982; Crandall, 1995; DeJong & Kleck,
1986; Karris, 1977; Larkin & Pines, 1979; Richardson, Goodman,
Hastorf, & Dornbusch, 1961).
Although the stereotypes and discrimination associated with the
stigma of being overweight are similar to those of other social
stigmas, such as race and physical disabilities, there is reason to
believe that the stigma of being overweight is experienced quite
differently. Unlike race, for example, weight is seen as an attribute
over which people have control (Allon, 1982; Goffman, 1963;
Jones et al, 1984; Weiner, Perry, & Magnusson, 1988). Thus, both
Diane M. Quinn and Jennifer Crocker, Department of Social Psychology, University of Michigan.
We gratefully acknowledge the support of National Science Foundation
Grant BNS 9596226 and National Institute of Mental Health Training
Grant T32 1580119. This work is based on the doctoral dissertation of
Diane M. Quinn.
We thank Jeffrey Sanchez-Burks for his helpful comments on earlier
drafts of this article. We also thank Amy Furay, Britt Karlblom, Laura
Olesky, and Ann Smith for their help with data collection.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Diane M.
Quinn, who is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Connecticut, 405 Babbidge Road, U-20, Storrs, Connecticut 06269-1020.
It would seem that the chronic devaluation of those who are
overweight, as well as their prejudice against their own group,
would result in lowered self-esteem. However, empirical research
comparing levels of psychological distress between those who are
overweight and those who are not has revealed mixed results—
some studies have found that overweight individuals have lower
self-esteem and higher rates of depression compared with normal
weight individuals, whereas other studies did not find any mean
differences between the two groups (for reviews, see Friedman &
Brownell, 1995; Jarvie, Lahey, Graziano, & Framer, 1983). Thus,
402
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
it does not seem that all overweight people are at risk for lowered
self-regard.
Friedman and Brownell (1995) suggested that individual differences in levels of psychological distress among those who are
overweight may be so great that the within-group variability overwhelms any between-group effects. These researchers called for a
more complex approach to studying the psychological correlates of
being overweight. They recommended developing a model of risk
factors to predict who will be vulnerable to psychological distress
because of their overweight status. This approach suggests that
there may be both demographic variables such as age, race, and
geographical location and psychological variables that will raise or
lower a person's vulnerability to the psychological distress related
to being overweight.
The current research focuses on one psychological variable that
may influence the extent to which overweight people are psychologically vulnerable to their stigma: ideology.
The Protestant Ethic
Individualism has been called the "dominant ideology" of
America (Kluegel & Smith, 1981, 1986; for a review of individualism and culture, see Triandis, 1995). Individualism encompasses a variety of beliefs and values, all focused on personal
freedom and the power of individuals to work autonomously and
achieve their goals. America's focus on individualism can be
traced, in part, to its Protestant work ethic roots (Weber, 1904/
1958). Indeed, Protestant ethic ideology has been called one of
America's core values (Hsu, 1972; Katz & Hass, 1988). The
Protestant ethic is an ideology that includes the belief that individual hard work leads to success and that lack of success is caused
by the moral failings of self-indulgence and lack of self-discipline.
Thus, those who receive positive outcomes deserve them because
they worked hard and are morally superior, whereas those who
receive negative outcomes deserve them because they are selfindulgent, lack self-discipline, and are morally flawed. Researchers have shown that belief in the Protestant ethic is related to
higher levels of conservatism, valuing of obedience and selfcontrol, and higher levels of authoritarianism and valuing salvation
(Feather, 1984; MacDonald, 1972).
Endorsing an individualistic ideology such as the Protestant
ethic may have some psychological benefits. Believing that selfdiscipline and hard work will lead to positive outcomes, and
believing that negative outcomes will only result from a lack of
self-discipline, allows people to believe that they have a considerable amount of control over their own outcomes. Believing that
one has control of one's outcomes is related to increased psychological well-being (see, e.g., Miller & Seligman, 1975; Taylor &
Brown, 1988; Warren & McEachren, 1983). For example, Kluegel
and Smith (1986) found that making internal attributions for economic success was related to increased feelings of happiness and
confidence. In addition, if one's outcomes are generally positive
and somewhat controllable, then holding a Protestant ethic ideology will allow one to take credit for those positive outcomes.
Although endorsing a Protestant ethic ideology may have some
positive benefits for the self, particularly for those who are successful, Protestant ethic beliefs are related to intolerance and
dislike of members of stigmatized groups (Furnham, 1985; Kluegel & Smith, 1986). Protestant ethic beliefs are part of the defini-
403
tions of symbolic racism (Kinder & Sears, 1981) and modem
racism (McConahay & Hough, 1976). Research by Katz (1981;
Katz & Hass, 1988) and by Biernat, Vescio, and Theno (1996) has
shown that members of stigmatized groups are often viewed as
violating traditional American values. That is, instead of viewing
the stigmatized as victims of a discriminatory system, people view
the lesser outcomes of those with stigmas as resulting from a lack
of self-discipline, hard work, and strong moral character.
The research on ideology and stigma has focused almost entirely
on how ideological beliefs relate to judgments that the nonstigmatized make of the stigmatized. Little research has been conducted
on how the stigmatized themselves may be affected by ideology,
particularly in regard to their self-esteem and psychological wellbeing. Given that greater endorsement of individualistic ideology
is related to decreased tolerance and increased blame of the stigmatized, it would seem psychologically protective for members of
stigmatized groups to be lower in their endorsement of individualistic ideology.
We propose that endorsing a Protestant ethic ideology is a
vulnerability factor for the psychological well-being of those who
feel overweight. The Protestant ethic dictates that those who are
overweight lack the self-discipline to control their weight, deserve
any negative outcomes they experience because of their weight,
and are moral failures. We hypothesize that holding such a set of
beliefs about the self will be related to lower self-regard. Thus, we
predicted that Protestant ethic beliefs would interact with weight
status to affect psychological well-being such that overweight
women who strongly endorse the Protestant ethic would feel worse
about themselves, whereas normal weight women would not be
adversely, affected by Protestant ethic beliefs. We tested this hypothesis in two ways. In Study 1, we measured individual levels of
endorsement of Protestant ethic beliefs, as well as trait global
self-esteem, depression, and anxiety for self-perceived overweight
and normal weight women. In Study 2, we primed either a Protestant ethic ideology or an inclusive ideology and then reminded
overweight and normal weight women of the social stigma attached to being overweight. We then measured self-esteem and
affect.
Endorsement of individualistic ideologies, such as the Protestant
ethic, may be related to a number of more specific beliefs about
weight that may also affect psychological well-being. Crandall
(1994; Crandall & Biernat, 1990) recently suggested that individualistic ideology determines the extent to which people believe
that weight is controllable, as well as the extent to which people
dislike overweight others. Specifically, Crandall argued that for
both normal weight and overweight people, higher endorsement of
individualistic ideology leads to greater belief in the controllability
of weight, which in turn leads to greater dislike of overweight
people. In support of his theory, Crandall (1994) found that endorsement of individualistic ideology is positively correlated with
belief in the controllability of weight and dislike of overweight
people. Similarly, recent research by Tiggemann and Rothblum
(1997) showed that having an internal locus of control is related to
greater negative stereotyping of overweight others and to lower
self-esteem for women who are overweight. Given Crandall's and
Tiggemann and Rothblum's findings, we hypothesized that both
greater belief in the controllability of weight and dislike of overweight others would interact with weight status to have a negative
effect on the psychological well-being of those who feel over-
QUINN AND CROCKER
404
weight but not those who feel normal weight. Furthermore, in
Study 1, we examined whether the effects of the Protestant ethic on
self-regard are mediated by the more proximal beliefs about controllability of weight and dislike of overweight others.
Study 1
Using a survey methodology we examined the relationships
between belief in the Protestant ethic and psychological well-being
of overweight and normal weight women. We used only female
participants because the negative consequences of the stigma of
overweight may apply more strongly and at lower levels of overweight for women than for men (Fallon, 1990). Unlike the cultural
ideal for men, which includes a body shape quite similar to the
natural body shape of men, the cultural ideal for women includes
a practically unreachable standard of thinness, quite different from
the natural body shape of most women (Rodin, Silberstein, &
Striegel-Moore, 1984). Women's self-perceived weight status (i.e.,
whether they felt they were normal weight, somewhat overweight,
or very overweight) was used to test these hypotheses instead of
actual weight or body mass index (BMI). Because standards of
thinness differ across individuals and subcultures (Davis, 1992;
Hebl & Heatherton, 1998), some women may feel overweight even
when they are medically normal weight, whereas others may feel
normal despite being objectively overweight. In these studies, we
are interested in how cultural ideologies interact with how people
feel about their weight to affect feelings about the self. To verify
that self-perceived weight, rather than BMI, is critical, we also
assessed BMI.
Method
Participants and Procedure
Participants were 257 college women who participated for credit toward
their introductory psychology class. The participants ranged in age from 17
to 26 years, with a mean age of 18.5 years. Seventy-four percent of the
sample was European American, 12% was Asian or Asian American, 8%
was African American, 3% was Hispanic, and the remaining 3% identified
themselves as "other."1
Participants rated their self-perceived weight status by checking one of
the following five categories: very underweight (more than 15 pounds),
somewhat underweight (between 6 and 15 pounds), normal weight (plus or
minus 5 pounds), somewhat overweight (6 to 15 pounds), or very overweight (more than 15 pounds). Participants were also asked their height
and weight, from which we computed BMI scores.
Participants filled out the packet of questionnaires in groups of 2 to 15
or in a larger testing session in which they filled out questionnaires for
several unrelated studies. The order of the scales within the questionnaire
packet was counterbalanced such that some participants received the psychological well-being measures first and the ideology and attitude measures second, whereas the rest of the participants received the scales in the
reverse order.
by Katz and Hass, we added 5 similar items in more updated language:
"Getting ahead is a matter of working hard and relying only on yourself,"
"People are responsible for their own situation in life," "People should not
count on others to solve their problems for them," "A person who blames
others for his or her problems is a cop-out," and "If you want to be
successful, all you need to do is work hard and improve yourself." The
reliability coefficient for the original 11-item scale is .71, whereas the
16-item scale has a reliability coefficient of .79. Each item was rated on a
scale ranging from 1 to 7, with higher numbers indicating more endorsement of Protestant ethic.
Controllability of weight and dislike of overweight others. Belief in the
controllability of weight and dislike toward the overweight were assessed
with a modified version of the Antifat Attitudes scale (Crandall, 1994). The
Antifat Attitudes Scale is composed of three subscales, which measure
belief in the controllability of weight (or "willpower"; e.g., "Some people
are fat pretty much through their own fault"), fear of fat, and dislike of the
overweight (e.g., "I really don't like fat people much"). To increase the
internal consistency of the scales, we added three items to the Dislike
subscale: "I feel repulsed when I see a fat person," "Fat people disgust me,"
and "I have an immediate negative reaction when I meet a fat person." The
alpha increased from .81 for the original scale to .89 with the additional
items. In addition, we added five items to the original three-item controllability (i.e., willpower) scale: "Fat people can lose weight if they really
want to," "Through a combination of exercise and dieting, anyone can lose
weight and keep it off indefinitely," "The medical problems that overweight people have are their own fault," "Overweight people are responsible for their own problems," and "Weight is something which is under a
person's control." The reliability coefficient was raised from .72 to .84 with
the additional items. Each dislike and controllability item was rated on a
scale ranging from 1 to 9, with higher numbers indicating greater dislike of
overweight people and greater belief in the controllability of weight,
respectively.
Psychological well-being. Psychological well-being was assessed with
the Rosenberg (1965) measure of global self-esteem, the Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale (Radloff, 1977), and the Trait Anxiety subscale of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (Spielberger, Vagg,
Barker, Donham, & Westberry, 1980). The response scales for SelfEsteem, Depression, and Trait Anxiety all range from 1 to 4 with higher
numbers indicating higher self-esteem, depression, and anxiety.
Results
We hypothesized that endorsement of the Protestant ethic would
be more negatively related to psychological well-being for women
who felt overweight than for those who did not and that a similar
effect would occur for controllability and dislike beliefs. To examine support for these hypotheses in the present study, we first
compared mean level of psychological well-being, Protestant
ethic, controllability, and dislike among somewhat overweight,
very overweight, and normal weight women and examined the
zero-order correlations among these variables. We then conducted
an analysis that examined the ability of weight status, Protestant
1
Measures
Ideology. The Protestant Ethic Scale from Katz and Hass (1988) was
used as a measure of individualistic ideology. This scale is a shortened
form of the Protestant Ethic Scale created by Mirels and Garrett (1971).
The scale measures the extent to which people endorse hard work, selfdiscipline, and personal responsibility (e.g., "A distaste for hard work
usually reflects a weakness of character"). In addition to the 11 items used
Women of different ethnicity were divided among the weight groups as
follows: In the normal weight group 19 (16.4%) were Asian, 8 (6.9%) were
African American, and 4 (3.4%) were Hispanic. In the somewhat overweight group, 11 (8.7%) were Asian, 9 (7.1%) were African American,
and 3 (2.4%) were Hispanic. In the very overweight group, 2 (10.5%) were
Asian, 4 (21.1%) were African American, and none were Hispanic. The
numbers in each group were too small to conduct the analyses separately
by ethnicity. However, when all ethnicities except for European Americans
are removed, the pattern of findings remain the same.
405
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
Table 1
Means and Standard Deviations for Self-Perceived Normal Weight, Somewhat Overweight,
and Very Overweight Women
Somewhat
overweight
Normal weight
Very overweight
Measure
M
SD
M
SD
M
SD
Rosenberg Self-Esteem
CES-D
Anxiety
Psychological well-being
Protestant ethic
Dislike of overweight
Belief in weight controllability
3.35a
1.77a
2.09,
.39,
4.25a
2.25,
4.40a
0.51
0.53
0.46
2.68
0.65
1.31
1.28
3.22a
l-86a,b
2-17,
-.25,
4.37a
2.47,
4.68a
0.48
0.47
0.42
2.37
0.66
1.37
1.16
2.92b
2.07 b
2.44
-1.81 b
4.47
1.89
4.90
0.66
0.54
0.53
3.08
0.56
1.09
1.54
Note. Means with different subscripts differ significantly at p < .05. CES-D = Center for Epidemiological
Studies Depression Scale.
ethic, and their interaction to explain psychological well-being.
Using similar regression analyses, we examined the ability of (a)
dislike, weight status, and their interaction and of (b) controllability, weight status, and their interaction to explain psychological
well-being. Finally, we conducted mediation analyses to determine
whether the predicted effect of Protestant ethic could be explained
by its link to controllability or dislike. Parallel analyses using BMI
scores in place of self-perceived weight status were also
conducted.
Mean Levels of BMI, Psychological Well-Being,
and Beliefs
When we examined the number of women in each of the
self-perceived weight status categories we found that no women
rated themselves as very underweight, 8 women rated themselves
as somewhat underweight, 116 felt normal weight, 114 felt somewhat overweight, and 19 felt very overweight. A one-way analysis
of variance (ANOVA) showed that the BMI scores did differ by
self-perceived weight status, F(3, 248) = 45.39, p < .0001.
Follow-up Scheffe tests showed that the very overweight group's
mean BMI score (M = 27.76) was significantly higher than the
somewhat overweight group's (M = 23.89), which in turn was
significantly higher than the normal weight group's (M = 20.64),
which was not significantly higher than the somewhat underweight
group's (M = 18.83). Therefore, self-perceived weight status is
related to actual weight status. Because there were no women in
the very underweight group and a very small number in the
somewhat underweight group, we combined the groups of somewhat underweight and normal weight women when we compared
groups or plotted regressions. However, in the regression analyses,
the original self-perceived weight status scale (with all four
groups) is used.
In this sample of college-age women, those who perceived
themselves as very overweight showed lower psychological wellbeing compared with both those who felt only somewhat overweight and those who felt normal weight. The very overweight
women had lower self-esteem, F(2, 255) = 6.44, p < .01, and
higher anxiety, F(2, 255) = 5.32, p < .01, than their normal
weight and somewhat overweight peers, as well as higher depression, F(2, 255) = 3.34, p < .05, than the normal weight women.
(See Table 1 for means and standard deviations.) Because selfesteem, anxiety, and depression are highly correlated (see Table 2),
we created a composite measure of psychological well-being by
standardizing the scores on each of the three scales and then
adding the standardized scores together. Higher numbers on the
composite measure indicate higher psychological well-being (de-
Table 2
Correlations Between Psychological Well-Being Measures, Vulnerability Factors,
and Weight Status for all Participants in Study 1
Measure
1.
2.
3.
4.
1
Self-esteem
Anxiety
Depression
Psychological
well-being index
5. Protestant ethic
6. Controllability
7. Dislike
8. Weight status
9. Body mass index
2
-.72**
-.53**
—
.72**
.86**
.02
.02
-.13*
-.15*
-.06
-.93**
-.08
-.06
.12*
.12*
.08
p<.001.
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
—
.03
-.13*
—
.59**
—
—
-.85**
-.04
-.04
.10
.11
.09
—
.05
.05
-.14*
-.15*
-.05
—
—
.38**
.27**
.43**
.17*
.15*
.08
-.02
406
QUINN AND CROCKER
pression and anxiety were reverse coded). Cronbach's alpha for the
composite measure was .85. Very overweight women had significantly lower psychological well-being than either somewhat overweight or normal weight women, F(2, 255) = 6.59, p < .01.
For the vulnerability factors, there were no significant differences between the normal weight, somewhat overweight, and very
overweight on Protestant ethic, controllability, or dislike. In addition, there were no main effects of order of scales on Protestant
ethic, controllability beliefs, dislike, or psychological well-being
(all Fs < 1), nor were there any weight status by order interactions
(all interaction Fs < 1).
Correlations Between Vulnerability Factors
Consistent with research by Crandall (1994), there was a significant positive correlation between Protestant ethic and controllability and between Protestant ethic and dislike. In addition,
controllability and dislike were significantly correlated with each
other. These correlations were similar regardless of weight status.
(See Table 2.) Thus, ideological beliefs, specifically Protestant
ethic, are related to specific beliefs and attitudes about weight.
Higher endorsement of Protestant ethic was related to a greater
belief in the controllability of weight. In addition, greater controllability beliefs are correlated with more dislike of overweight
others.
Predicting Psychological Well-Being
To control for multicollinearity, all of the predictors (Protestant
ethic, dislike, controllability, and weight status) were first cen-
tered, and then the centered terms were used to create the product
terms for interactions (Cronbach, 1987; Jaccard, Turrisi, & Wan,
1990). We conducted a series of hierarchical regressions in which
psychological well-being was regressed on self-perceived weight
status and the vulnerability factor in the first step, and the interaction of the two on the second step. Unless otherwise stated, for
all regressions the overall model accounted for a significant
amount of variance.
Protestant ethic. When psychological well-being was regressed on weight status and Protestant ethic, there was a significant effect of weight status (j3 = — .16, p < .05), indicating that
higher weight status was related to lower well-being. There was no
main effect of Protestant ethic (j3 = .07, ns). More importantly, the
interaction between weight status and Protestant ethic was significant (/3 = —A5,p< .02). To clarify the nature of the interaction,
we calculated the simple slopes for the normal weight, somewhat
overweight, and very overweight groups of participants and then
plotted the predicted values at several levels of Protestant ethic. As
can be seen in Figure 1, for the very overweight participants, as
Protestant ethic increased, psychological well-being decreased
(simple regression slope, b = -1.04, p = .09). It is interesting
that, for the normal weight participants, the opposite pattern occurred—as Protestant ethic increased, psychological well-being
increased (simple slope, b = .84, p < .01). However, the women
who felt somewhat overweight were neither helped nor hurt by
endorsing the Protestant ethic (simple slope, b = —.10, ns). The
significant interaction term in the regression equation indicates
that the simple slopes are significantly different from each other
(Aiken & West, 1991).
Normal
Weight
1.0 T
0.5--
o
00
I
=
o.o
"re
o
O)
-0.5 - -
o
o
.c
o
Somewhat
Overweight
-10
Very
Overweight
-1.5 --
-2.0 -t
Low
Mean
High
Protestant Ethic
Figure 1. Predicted values for the interaction between weight status and Protestant ethic beliefs on psychological well-being.
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
When this hierarchical regression was repeated using BMI
scores in place of the weight status variable, there were no main
effects for BMI or Protestant ethic (/3s = .04 and .03, respectively). The interaction was significant (/3 = - . 1 3 , p = .05),
although the overall F for the model was not significant, F = 1.65,
p = . 18. The pattern of the interaction was similar to the Protestant
Ethic X Weight Status interaction.
Controllability. When controllability, weight status, and their
interaction were entered in a hierarchical regression analysis on
psychological well-being, there was a main effect for weight status
(|3 = -.16, p < .05), no main effect for controllability (/3 = .07,
ns), and a marginally significant interaction between controllability and weight status (j8 = -.12, p = .06). As Figure 2 shows, the
interaction pattern is similar to that of the Protestant ethic interaction. Greater belief in the controllability of weight was related to
lower psychological well-being for those who were very overweight (simple slope, b = - . 3 3 , ns), higher psychological wellbeing for those who felt normal weight (simple slope, b = .35, p <
.05), and very little relationship to well-being for those who felt
moderately overweight (simple slope, b = .01, ns).
We conducted the hierarchical regression substituting BMI for
weight status. There were no significant main effects, nor was
there a significant interaction (j8 = -.04, ns).
Dislike. Again, a hierarchical regression was conducted to
examine the interaction of dislike of overweight others with weight
status on psychological well-being. There was again a main effect
of weight status Q3 = - . 1 4 , p < .05), a main effect of dislike ()3 =
— .13, p < .05), and an interaction between the two (/3 = —.15,
407
p < .05). Examination of Figure 3 shows that the interaction
pattern for dislike is different from the two previous interactions.
Whereas dislike beliefs had virtually no effect on the psychological well-being of the normal weight participants (simple slope,
b = .02, ns), increasing dislike was related to decreasing psychological well-being for the somewhat overweight participants (simple slope, b = -.45, p < .01), and even more strongly for the very
overweight participants (simple slope, b = -.92, p < .01).
When we conducted a similar regression with well-being regressed on BMI and dislike, we found a main effect for dislike
(j3 = -.12, p < .05) but no interaction (/3 = .01, ns).
Mediation analyses. The previous analyses showed that Protestant ethic, controllability, and dislike served as vulnerability
factors for the psychological well-being of those who felt very
overweight. An important question is whether the effects of Protestant ethic on psychological well-being are explained by the
association of Protestant ethic with controllability beliefs, dislike,
or both. In order to examine this question, we conducted three
hierarchical regressions. In the first, we entered weight status,
Protestant ethic, and controllability on the first step, the Protestant
Ethic X Weight Status interaction on the second step, and the
Controllability X Weight Status interaction on the final step. In
this way, we could examine whether the Controllability X Weight
Status interaction mediated the effect of the Protestant Ethic X
Weight Status interaction on well-being. There was a significant
main effect for weight status (/3 = -.16, p < .05), and the
Protestant Ethic X Weight Status interaction was significant (/3 =
-.14, p < .05). When the Controllability X Weight Status inter-
1.0 -r
Normal
Weight
° > 0.5 +
'53
CD
Somewhat
Overweight
15 -0.5
o
_o
O
-10
Very
Overweight
o
1
I*.
-2.0 4.
Low
Mean
High
Controllability
Figure 2. Predicted values for the interaction between weight status and controllability beliefs on psychological
well-being.
408
QUINN AND CROCKER
1.0 j
O) 0.5-
*
C
Normal
Weight
"55 „„
CQ °°fl> -0.5 -
Somewhat
Overweight
~m -i.o -
o
£
O
-1.5-
2
Very
Overweight
f " "° "
Q.
-2.5-
-3.0 ^
Low
Mean
High
Dislike
Figure 3. Predicted values for the interaction between weight status and dislike on psychological well-being.
action was entered on the next step it was not significant (/3 =
— .06, ns), and it only slightly reduced the Protestant Ethic X
Weight Status interaction (/3 = — .12, p < .08). In a second
hierarchical regression, we entered weight status, Protestant ethic,
and controllability on the first step, the Controllability X Weight
Status interaction on the second step, and the Protestant Ethic X
Weight Status interaction on the final step. In this case the Controllability X Weight Status interaction was reduced from (3 =
—. 11, p < .07, in the second step to j3 = — .07, ns, in the third step.
The Protestant Ethic X Weight Status interaction remained marginally significant in the third step (/3 = —.12, p = .08). Thus,
controllability did not mediate the effects of Protestant ethic on
well-being. Indeed, the Controllability X Weight Status interaction
seemed to be explained by the Protestant Ethic X Weight Status
interaction, not vice versa.
We conducted a similar hierarchical regression in order to
ascertain whether dislike might mediate the effect of Protestant
ethic on well-being. Again, we entered the three variables on the
first step (weight status, Protestant ethic, and dislike), the Protestant Ethic X Weight Status interaction on the second step, and the
Dislike X Weight Status interaction on the third step. There were
main effects for all three variables: weight status (/3 = -.16, p <
.05), Protestant ethic (/3 = .11, p = .07), and dislike (/3 = -.16,
p < .05). Again, the interaction between Protestant ethic and
weight status was significant on the second step (j3 = -.14, p <
.05). When the Dislike X Weight Status interaction was entered on
the third step, there was a significant increase in variance explained (F change = 3.8, p = .05). The Dislike X Weight Status
interaction was significant (j8 = -.12, p = .05); however, it did
not reduce the Protestant Ethic X Weight Status interaction (j8 =
— .12, p = .06). Thus, the effects of Protestant ethic were not
mediated by dislike; instead, each interaction explained unique
variance-in psychological well-being.
Discussion
In Study 1, when we examined the mean differences between
the normal weight, somewhat overweight, and very overweight
groups, we found that the very overweight group had lower overall
psychological well-being. They were lower in self-esteem and
higher in anxiety and depression than the normal weight group and
the somewhat overweight group. Thus, in this sample, feeling very
overweight was itself a vulnerability factor.
In a replication of Crandall's (1994; Crandall & Biernat, 1990)
findings, the overweight participants (both somewhat and very
overweight) did not differ from the normal weight participants in
their endorsement of the Protestant ethic, their belief in the controllability of weight, or their levels of dislike toward overweight
others. Thus, it seems that overweight women do not have the
same sort of self-protective strategies that members of other stigmatized groups do (Crocker & Major, 1989). Many stigmatized
groups have a sense of collective identity, which fosters both an
awareness of discrimination and a sense of group pride (Crocker &
Luhtanen, 1990; Crocker, Luhtanen, Blaine, & Broadnax, 1994).
For members of minority groups with a positive sense of collective
identity, this group pride is related to positive psychological wellbeing (Crocker et al., 1994). However, the results of this study, as
well as work by Crandall (1994; Crandall & Biernat, 1990),
showed that levels of dislike toward overweight people did not
differ by personal weight status.
Extending work by Crandall and Biernat (1990), we found that
for women who felt either somewhat or very overweight, increased
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
dislike was related to decreased psychological well-being. For
normal weight women, level of dislike had virtually no relationship with well-being. It may be that this lack of positive group
identity is negatively related to psychological well-being both
because a negative view of a group that includes the self is
psychologically unhealthy and because there is no group to support
and teach a person how to recognize and fight discrimination.
The major goal of this study was to examine how endorsement
of Protestant ethic ideology interacts with self-perceived weight
status to affect psychological well-being. Consistent with our
predictions, endorsement of the Protestant ethic functioned as a
vulnerability factor for the psychological well-being of overweight
women—but only for those women who felt very overweight. For
those women who felt somewhat overweight—between 6 and 15
pounds—endorsement of the Protestant ethic did not seem to
either help or hurt their psychological well-being. However, for
normal weight women, greater endorsement of the Protestant ethic
was related to increased psychological well-being. It is notable that
the normal weight women in our study are successful by many
standards. They are highly achieving students at an elite public
university. Consequently, we speculate that for normal weight
women, endorsement of the Protestant ethic may encourage greater
feelings of responsibility or credit for their various achievements.
For the very overweight women, however, weight may be chronically salient. For them, endorsement of the Protestant ethic may
lead them to see their weight as a sign of moral weakness and
failure. Given our findings, it may be that the women who feel
somewhat overweight vary in the extent to which their weight (as
opposed to other achievements) is salient. Thus, in the realm of
body weight, ideological beliefs seem to trump self-esteem protection. That is, women use their ideology to judge themselves and
others, even when it does not enhance their self-esteem.
Beliefs about the controllability of weight followed a similar,
albeit weaker, pattern as Protestant ethic. For the very overweight
women, higher endorsement of the controllability of weight was
related to lower psychological well-being whereas the opposite
was true for normal weight women. For all of the regression
analyses, self-perceived weight status showed the interaction patterns much more clearly than did using BMI. This supports our
view that whether, and to what extent, women feel they are
overweight is more meaningful psychologically than their actual
weight.
Crandall (1994) has argued that conservative ideologies are
related to dislike of those who are overweight because conservatives believe that people are generally responsible for their outcomes and that the overweight, in particular, are "fat" because of
a lack of willpower. Contrary to this line of reasoning, in the
present study, neither controllability nor dislike mediated the interaction between Protestant ethic and weight status on psychological well-being. Rather, it may be that the Protestant ethic
makes salient a set of standards by which the self can be judged.
These standards are related to larger moral standards, such as the
virtue of self-discipline and self-denial and the weakness inherent
in self-indulgence, and are not limited to weight. However, the
overweight who endorse the Protestant ethic may feel judged and
found wanting by these moral standards—particularly if their
weight is very salient to them.
409
Study 2
Study 1 showed that endorsement of the Protestant ethic was
related to lower psychological well-being for very overweight
women. The results indicated that endorsement of the Protestant
ethic poses a unique vulnerability factor for the overweight—a
vulnerability that cannot be explained by its association with
specific antifat attitudes. However, because the study was correlational in nature, the direction of causality from ideology to
well-being cannot be assured. It may be that as psychological
well-being decreases, overweight but not normal weight women
increasingly judge themselves according to the harsh standards of
the Protestant ethic. One goal of the second study was to show that
making the Protestant ethic salient can affect the well-being of
overweight women, to establish that the causal direction can go
from ideology to well-being.
A second goal of this study was to move from examining
stable internal beliefs to examining contextual effects of ideology on the self. Ideological messages about individualism,
self-discipline, and hard work are a pervasive aspect of American culture. When they are salient, these ideologies may provide standards for judging the self that affect even those who
would not ordinarily endorse them. For those who feel stigmatized by their weight, these messages may temporarily cause
them to feel worse about themselves. In the second study, we
tested this idea by manipulating the type of ideology that is
salient for participants within the context of weight and then by
measuring state affect and self-esteem.
Research by Katz and Hass (1988) has shown that both individualistic and egalitarian ideologies appeal to most Americans.
Katz and Hass (1988; Katz, 1981) found that when participants
were primed with Protestant ethic ideology, they endorsed more
negative attitudes toward the stigmatized. However, after being
reminded of an egalitarian ideology, participants tended to have
more positive, sympathetic reactions to the stigmatized. We theorized that those who are overweight may regard themselves differently depending on whether a Protestant ethic or an inclusive
ideology is more salient when they are thinking about the social
costs of being overweight.
In this study, we primed one of two ideologies: either an
individualistic, Protestant ethic ideology, or a more accepting,
inclusive ideology. No mention of weight was made when
priming ideology. After the prime, all participants read a second, ostensibly unrelated message about the negative social
outcomes for people who are overweight. In this way, all
participants were encouraged to think about the stigma of
overweight, creating a specific context in which ideology could
be used to evaluate the self. We hypothesized that priming a
Protestant ethic ideology, compared with an inclusive ideology,
would lead to increased negative affect and lowered self-esteem
for the overweight women because the ideology would be
salient when they were reminded of the stigma of being overweight. However, for the normal weight women, making one or
another ideology salient should not affect their self-evaluations
in this context because their attention was directed to the stigma
of overweight, which does not apply to them, rather than to their
academic or other such successes or failures.
QUINN AND CROCKER
410
Method
Participants
One hundred twenty-two women participated in the study for course
credit for introductory psychology. In a mass testing session at the beginning of the semester, women rated their self-perceived weight status on the
same scale used in Study 1. Participants were contacted later in the
semester and asked to participate in the study. No mention of their weight
status was made either before or during the study. Sixty-one women who
identified themselves as overweight (55 as somewhat overweight and 6 as
very overweight) and 62 who identified themselves as normal weight or
somewhat underweight (57 as normal weight and 5 as somewhat underweight) participated.
Four participants' data were dropped from analyses because they were
extreme outliers (more than two standard deviations) on self-esteem measured before the study began. Of these 4 participants, 2 identified themselves as overweight (1 as somewhat overweight and 1 as very overweight)
and 2 identified themselves as normal weight. The final number of participants in the analyses was 118.
Design and Procedure
The design of the study was a 2 (self-perceived weight status: overweight or normal weight) X 2 (ideology primed: Protestant ethic or
inclusive) between-participants study.
Participants were called and asked to participate in the study. They were
scheduled in groups of up to 6. When participants arrived, they were told
the study concerned comprehension and mood effects of media messages.
They were then given a packet of questionnaires to complete. Because
overweight and normal weight women have been shown to sometimes
differ in their levels of self-esteem, the first two questionnaires measured
pretest levels of global self-esteem and mood. The next page in the packet
contained the manipulation. Half of the participants read a paragraph,
modeled after a political speech, that emphasized the importance of personal responsibility for both positive and negative outcomes and the
importance of individual hard work and commitment toward goals. It
stressed the elements of the Protestant ethic. The other half of the participants read part of a speech by former president Ronald Reagan (the 1988
state of the union address), which was similarly patriotic but stressed that
Americans need to "combine our differences into unity." Then, at the
bottom of the page participants were told to skim back over the message
again because once they turned the page they were not to look back at the
message.
The following page in the packet asked them several questions to bolster
the cover story (e.g., "Would this message be more powerful if it was in a
TV or radio format?"). It also asked them to summarize the message in one
sentence, to rate how powerful they thought the message was on a scale
ranging from 1 (extremely weak) to 7 (extremely powerful), and to describe
their own political orientation. After these questions, participants' mood
and self-esteem were again assessed.
All participants then read the same second message. This message was
meant to remind all participants about the social devaluation of being
overweight. The message was formatted like a newspaper article, and it
detailed the many negative social effects of being overweight, such as
increased job discrimination, being rated less attractive, having fewer
dating partners, and so on. All facts in the article were based on previous
social psychological research.
After reading the weight message, participants again answered several
questions included to support the cover story. They then completed measures of state global self-esteem, mood, and self-evaluations. After finishing these measures, participants were debriefed, and the hypotheses were
explained.
Materials
The Rosenberg (1965) Self-Esteem Scale was used to measure global
self-esteem. The instructions for the Self-Esteem Scale were modified to be
a state version. Participants were asked to answer this measure, as well as
all other measures, with how they were feeling "right now." The Multiple
Affect Adjective Checklist (MAACL; Zuckerman & Lubin, 1965) was
used to measure mood. The MAACL has three subscales: Depression,
Anxiety, and Hostility. To determine whether ideology affects evaluations
of particular aspects of the self, Heatherton and Polivy's (1991) State
Self-Esteem Scale was also included. This scale has subscales for Performance, Social, and Appearance Self-Esteem but does not have a scale
assessing global state self-esteem.
Results
Manipulation Checks
Directly after reading the ideology prime, participants were
asked to write a one-sentence summary of the prime. All participants were able to do this, signifying that all had read the prime
message.
An ANOVA with weight status (normal weight or overweight)
and prime (Protestant ethic message or inclusive message) was
conducted on ratings of how powerful participants found the
ideology primes. There were no significant effects for either
weight status or prime type. Participants found the Protestant ethic
message (M = 4.78) and the inclusive message (M = 4.71) equally
powerful.
An ANOVA was also conducted on the one-item measure of
political orientation. There were no effects of either weight status
or primeon political orientation.
A similar ANOVA was conducted for ratings of the second
message about the negative social effects of weight. In this case
there was a main effect of prime, F(l, 114) = 7.61, p < .01, such
that women who had read the message priming Protestant ethic
rated the weight message as more powerful than women who had
read the message priming inclusiveness (Ms = 4.9 and 4.36,
respectively). There was no main effect for weight status, nor was
there an interaction. Thus, regardless of weight status, being
primed with the Protestant ethic made a message about the negative outcomes of weight seem more powerful.
Pretest Mood and Global Self-Esteem
Analysis of pretest mood showed no differences between overweight and normal weight women (M = 1.93 and 1.94, respectively), F < 1. Analysis of the pretest self-esteem scores revealed
that overweight women were only slightly lower in self-esteem
(M = 5.74) than were normal weight women (M = 5.95), F{\,
116) = 1.76, p = .18. However, to assure that these pretest
differences did not influence our posttest findings, pretest selfesteem was used as a covariate in all posttest analyses.
Psychological Well-Being Index
Because our measure of posttest self-esteem (as assessed by a
state version of the Rosenberg Self-Esteem Scale) and mood (as
assessed by the MAACL's subscales: Anxiety, Depression, and
Hostility) were highly correlated (see Table 3), we standardized
the scores on each of these measures and then added the standard-
411
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
Table 3
Correlations Between Measures of Posttest Psychological Well-Being for Study 2
Measure
1
1. Self-esteem
2. Anxiety
3. Depression
4. Hostility
5. Psychological well-being index
6. Weisht status
—
-.61**
-.65**
-.44**
.79**
-.15
—
.73**
.69**
-.88**
.16
—
.76**
— .92**
.03
—
-.84s
.10
-.13
—
"p < .001.
ized scores together to create an index of psychological well-being.
Cronbach's alpha for the psychological well-being measure was
.88. The psychological well-being measure is scored such that
higher scores signify increased psychological well-being (anxiety,
depression, and hostility were reverse scored).
Psychological Well-Being After the Weight Message
We predicted that because all women were focused on the
stigma of being overweight, the psychological well-being of overweight but not normal weight women would be affected by the
ideology prime manipulation. An analysis of covariance
(ANCOVA) on psychological well-being with weight group and
prime type as the independent variables and pretest self-esteem as
the covariate showed a main effect of prime, F(l, 113) = 8.85,p<
.05, reflecting that all women were negatively affected by the
Protestant ethic prime and positively affected by the inclusive
prime. There was no main effect of weight group. However, the
main effects were qualified by a marginally significant Weight
Group X Prime interaction, F(l, 113) = 2.95, p = .09. (See Figure
4 for means.) Consistent with our predictions that only the overweight women would be affected by the primes, follow-up t tests
showed that the overweight women in the Protestant ethic prime
condition had significantly lower psychological well-being than
the overweight women in the inclusive prime condition, t(55) =
—2.55, p < .02. For normal weight women, the effects of the
primes were not significantly different, t(59) — —1.51, ns.2
Specific Self-Evaluations
In addition to the measures of global self-esteem and mood,
participants completed a measure of state self-esteem that assessed
specific self-evaluations in the performance, social, and appearance domains (Heatherton & Polivy, 1991). These measures were
not included in the psychological well-being index. Instead,
ANCOVAs were conducted for each self-evaluative domain. For
appearance self-esteem, there was a main effect of weight group,
F(l, 117) = 8.55, p < .01, and a main effect of prime type, F(l,
117) = 4.95, p < .05, but the interaction term did not reach
significance. Follow up t tests showed that within the overweight
group, there was a significant difference by prime type, ?(55) =
—2.06, p < .05, showing that women primed with Protestant ethic
felt worse about their appearance than women primed with inclusiveness. The appearance self-esteem of the normal weight women
did not differ by prime, r(59) = —1.09, ns. (See Figure 5 for
means.) There were no main effects or interactions for the performance or social domains.
Discussion
In support of our predictions, Study 2 showed that when primed
with Protestant ethic as compared with inclusiveness, the overweight participants showed lower psychological well-being, as
well as feeling worse about their appearance. The psychological
well-being of the normal weight participants was not changed by
having a Protestant ethic or inclusive ideology made salient within
the context of weight.
At first glance these results might seem contrary to the results of
Study 1. In Study 1 higher endorsement of the Protestant ethic was
related to better psychological well-being for the normal weight
womenT" However, the context and measures used in these two
studies are quite different. In the first study we asked people about
their chronic, global feelings about the self and their beliefs. For
example, the depression symptoms inventory asked participants to
think about the number of times they had depressive symptoms
"during the past week," and the anxiety scale asked participants to
complete the scale "according to how you generally feel." These
measures are different from those in the second study, in which we
were trying to manipulate state feelings about the self by priming
ideologies. In all of the dependent measures of Study 2, we
specifically asked participants to fill out the scales according to
how they were feeling "right now." In Study 1, endorsing the
Protestant ethic could have been related to a multitude of positive
outcomes besides weight, of which normal weight people are
likely to have more than overweight people. In Study 2, however,
all participants were induced to focus on the stigma of overweight,
and we expected this would have a much greater effect on selfevaluation for those who felt overweight. In sum, in the first study
2
Because the number of self-perceived very overweight women was
very small in each condition (4 in the Protestant ethic prime condition
and 1 in the inclusive prime condition) it is not possible to conduct a 2
(prime) X 3 (weight status: normal weight, somewhat overweight, very
overweight) ANOVA. However, when the very overweight women are
removed from the analysis, the results for well-being remain the same, F(l,
108) = 2.90, p < .10. Simple effects tests show that the psychological
well-being of the overweight women in the Protestant ethic prime condition differs significantly from overweight women in the inclusive prime
condition, f(50) = —3.22, p < .01, whereas normal weight women in the
two conditions do not significantly differ, ?(59) = —.97, ns.
412
QUINN AND CROCKER
0.98
• Normal Weight
• Overweight
-1.11
-1.5 -L
Protestant Ethic Prime
Inclusive Prime
Figure 4. Means for psychological well-being of self-perceived overweight and normal weight women by
ideology prime.
we examined how ideological beliefs were related to trait-level
psychological well-being, whereas in the second study we examined the temporary effects of making an ideology salient in the
context of thinking about weight.
Conclusions
According to Friedman and Brownell (1995), researchers need
to move beyond the search for main effects of weight status on
well-being and examine those factors that increase the risk of
psychological distress among the overweight. The present studies
explored one possible vulnerability factor: belief in the Protestant
ethic. We proposed that women who feel overweight would be
more vulnerable to psychological distress if they highly endorsed
the Protestant ethic because they would be more likely to view
themselves as moral failures. The results of Study 1 supported this
view. The link between Protestant ethic and well-being differed for
very overweight, somewhat overweight, and normal weight
women: Belief in the Protestant ethic was positively associated
D Normal Weight
3.52
Protestant Ethic Prime
Overweight
Inclusive Prime
Figure 5. Means for appearance self-esteem of self-perceived overweight and normal weight women by
ideology prime.
413
IDEOLOGY AND OVERWEIGHT
with psychological well-being for women who did not feel overweight but negatively related to well-being for women who felt
very overweight. Study 2 lent support to our hypothesis that the
Protestant ethic can have a causal effect on psychological distress
among the overweight. Manipulating the salience of the Protestant
ethic adversely affected the well-being of overweight women but
not that of normal weight women. Thus, endorsement of conservative, individualistic values such as the Protestant ethic appears to
increase the risk of psychological distress—at both the state and
trait levels—among women who feel overweight.
The results of Studies 1 and 2 leave unanswered questions about
the mechanisms by which Protestant ethic ideology may affect
psychological well-being. We hypothesize that people use the
ideology as a standard for judging themselves—if they have failed
at something (in this case, controlling their weight), then they
judge this failure as being due to moral failings such as selfindulgence or lack of hard work and self-discipline, and this
judgment in turn leads to lowered self-regard. However, another
possible explanation of our findings stems from Higgins's selfdiscrepancy theory (Higgins, 1987; Strauman & Higgins, 1987).
According to self-discrepancy theory, differences between one's
actual self and one's ideal self (the self that one wishes to be) result
in increased sadness, whereas differences between one's actual self
and one's ought self (the self that one or others feel one should be)
result in increased agitation. If endorsing the Protestant ethic
makes salient an ought self that the overweight person fails to be,
then the person should experience more anxiety than depression.
However, in follow-up analyses conducted in Study 1, we found
significant interactions between Protestant ethic beliefs and weight
status for both anxiety (p < .05) and depression {p < .01).
Reanalysis of the data in Study 2 revealed a similar pattern of
effects on both anxiety and depression for the overweight women.
Thus, the data are not entirely consistent with the predictions of
self-discrepancy theory.
Previous research has demonstrated that belief in the Protestant
ethic is associated with more negative attitudes toward disadvantaged
or stigmatized groups (Katz & Hass, 1988; Kinder & Sears, 1981).
The present studies are the first that we are aware of to show that
endorsement of the Protestant ethic affects the well-being of the
stigmatized themselves. This is particularly dramatic in light of the
fact that endorsing the Protestant ethic was positively associated with
well-being for the normal weight, or nonstigmatized, participants in
the first study. However, it is not clear what effects belief in the
Protestant ethic may have on the self-regard of other stigmatized
groups. Those who are overweight have a stigma that is viewed as
controllable specifically through hard work and lack of selfindulgence. For stigmatized groups that have noncontrollable stigmas,
Protestant ethic beliefs may not have the same effects.
The second study not only addressed the direction of causality
from ideology to feelings about the self but also shifted the focus
from individual differences to contextual factors that affect wellbeing. The results of the second study suggest that the well-being
of overweight women may change as a function of the particular
context they find themselves in, and one important feature of the
context is the salience of messages about personal responsibility,
self-discipline, and hard work. Because these messages are pervasive in the United States, those who are overweight may often be
in contexts where aspects of the Protestant ethic are made salient.
For example, when a person hears a fiery political speech about
each American being responsible for his or her outcomes, or a
debate on the merits of "workfare" over welfare, then that person
may temporarily judge the self according to the tenets of the
Protestant ethic. For those whose weight is salient, this may lead to
feelings of low self-esteem, anxiety, and depression.
Worries about weight and body size have become normative for
women in America (Rodin et al., 1984). Even though increased
numbers of Americans are becoming overweight every year, being
overweight is not seen as normal but continues to be a stigmatized
condition. Because belief in the Protestant ethic increases overweight women's vulnerability to psychological distress, this belief
might also increase their vulnerability to eating disorders. Research on eating disorders indicates that negative mood and low
self-esteem may be risk factors for disordered eating (Heatherton
& Baumeister, 1991; Stice & Shaw, 1994). Thus, high levels of
endorsement of the Protestant ethic in the overweight may foster
unhealthy, disordered attempts to lose weight or maintain low
weight and unreasonable blame and dislike of the self when
attempts at weight loss fail. As is highlighted by the increasing
number of adolescent and young adult women with eating disorders, women are especially driven to try to escape this stigma—
even at the risk of their health and well-being. Future research
should address not only how the stigma of overweight affects
feelings about the self but also how to make being overweight a
less psychologically damaging stigma.
Endorsing beliefs about individual responsibility, hard work, and
self-discipline may be a double-edged sword. For those who are faring
well, these beliefs can lead to feelings of positive self-regard, selfsatisfaction, and perceived control over, and responsibility for, one's
positive-outcomes. But for those who are faring poorly, who fail to
satisfy societal ideals, these beliefs may be a risk factor for distress.
This is ironic, because all of us may eventually fall short of societal
ideals in one way or another, if not by gaining weight (and most
people do with age), then by falling short of cultural ideals of physical
appearance, achievement, or economic success.
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Received November 26, 1997
Revision received May 19, 1998
Accepted August 20, 1998 •