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Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?

Research suggests that social context affects individuals’ perception of their own weight. Using face-to-face interviews as the social context, we analyze the effect of interviewers’ (N = 90) body mass index on respondents’ (N = 3068) self-perceived weight level. Respondents reported a higher weight...

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Autores principales: Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj, Jæger, Mads Meier
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30622726
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055102918819260
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author Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj
Jæger, Mads Meier
author_facet Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj
Jæger, Mads Meier
author_sort Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj
collection PubMed
description Research suggests that social context affects individuals’ perception of their own weight. Using face-to-face interviews as the social context, we analyze the effect of interviewers’ (N = 90) body mass index on respondents’ (N = 3068) self-perceived weight level. Respondents reported a higher weight level when the interviewer had a higher body mass index (absolute social comparison). Female respondents reported a lower weight level if interviewers had a higher body mass index than they did (relative social comparison). Results suggest that weight perception reflects both absolute and relative social comparison, especially among women. Future research should consider causation and self-selection when studying social context and body image.
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spelling pubmed-63047102019-01-08 Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight? Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj Jæger, Mads Meier Health Psychol Open Report of Empirical Study Research suggests that social context affects individuals’ perception of their own weight. Using face-to-face interviews as the social context, we analyze the effect of interviewers’ (N = 90) body mass index on respondents’ (N = 3068) self-perceived weight level. Respondents reported a higher weight level when the interviewer had a higher body mass index (absolute social comparison). Female respondents reported a lower weight level if interviewers had a higher body mass index than they did (relative social comparison). Results suggest that weight perception reflects both absolute and relative social comparison, especially among women. Future research should consider causation and self-selection when studying social context and body image. SAGE Publications 2018-12-21 /pmc/articles/PMC6304710/ /pubmed/30622726 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055102918819260 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/ This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Report of Empirical Study
Christensen, Vibeke Tornhøj
Jæger, Mads Meier
Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title_full Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title_fullStr Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title_full_unstemmed Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title_short Weight and social comparison: Does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
title_sort weight and social comparison: does the weight of a stranger affect a person’s perception of their own weight?
topic Report of Empirical Study
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6304710/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30622726
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055102918819260
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