Amp’s post refers to a specific example of research investigating what purports to be stereotypes of fat workers.

The research treats these traits as if they have enough legitimacy to be proven or disproven, they do not. They come from the current beliefs about fatness and are not specific to the work context at all, fat =not exercising= lazy; = emotional eating = excess eating=fatness and so on, crap in crap out as they say.
Fat people have these traits because that is how fatness is explained, if not the explanations for fatness will have to change, that will happen when the people that are winding up the public decided to stop, probably when their wet dream of a magic bullet is fulfilled. The debunking will be ignored or other equally degrading will take their place.
As I’ve already said, laziness and emotional stability are not character/personality traits anyhow.

How are those studies? Especially the height one seems to point to a ‘men are more intelligent than women’ thing (as women are on average shorter) while what I heard was that men were outliers in both the low and high IQ disporportionately but had no significant average difference with women.

I do have a quibble with the media coverage: Lack of conscientiousness is not really the same thing as laziness (take a look at the sample questions in the Wikipedia article I linked to), so the study really didn’t examine the question of whether fat people are lazier than non-fat people. Which is not to say that they are—just that that’s not what was tested.

Mandolin:

Since the disproving of phrenology, and given the preponderance of empirical evidence already on the side of things like “no, body size is not correlated to intelligence”

Out of curiosity, could you point me to this evidence? I know of a few studies that have found a negative correlation between BMI and IQ scores, so I’d be interested in seeing the other side of the story. Also, height is positively correlated with IQ scores.

Brandon Berg,

Let’s stick to specifics;

‘overweight workers are lazier, more emotionally unstable and harder to get along with than their “normal weight” colleagues’

In the same way that someone with an IQ of 95 would find it hard to become a CEO, the specific assumed traits are hard to hide - incidentally, I don’t think of laziness, emotionally instability nor being hard to get along with as character traits.

If fat people turned up excessively in solitary jobs, were likely to be the to be the grumpy ones at work and turned up more regularly in mental institutions due to their ‘emotional’ instability then it would be worth deeper investigation.

Taking this seriously enough to study it is using a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it legitimises outrageous libels without really dispelling them because they are chosen they are not just there. We know this, so investigations should centre on why we so badly need to believe these things and others about fat people, this could potentially be usefully applied to other stereotypes and what roles they fulfil in our imagination.

Who was it that said ‘don’t worry about the stupidity of stupid people, it’s the stupidity of intelligent people you should worry about’

I’m merely pointing out that it is more plausible to assume that an attribute which is both theoretically controllable (and is in fact controlled by some people) may have more of a correlation to one’s personality than one which is not.

Sure. But to assume that this is relevant to studies, it assumes that the binary is A) dichotomous, and B) will evidence the same proportions of genetic/controllable from subject to subject.

I’m merely pointing out that it is more plausible to assume that an attribute which is both theoretically controllable (and is in fact controlled by some people) may have more of a correlation to one’s personality than one which is not. And that it may be appropriate to study it as such.

obviously humans are incredibly complex, so any generalised finding is going to be subject to issues of confounding factors, reductionism, etc. But that doesn’t make such findings worthless; it just makes them limited in what they mean. It is valueable to study people even if you can’t find all the answers to each question.

That’s reductive. It assumes that weight will have one cause in all individuals, which is highly, highly unlikely.

Body type which is derived fully or partially from free choice(s) is more similar to personal appearance. It is probable that personality type is linked to haircut, for example, since a haircut is a means of expression of personality. It is also quite probable that personality type is linked to certain voluntary behaviors: are you a weight lifter? An amateur mycologist? A What you have chosen to do is surely affected by what genetics gave you as a starting point, but is nonetheless a is a means of expression of personality.

The question then becomes which category body weight is in: Some folks seem to think it is genetic, i.e. without voluntary input. Other folks seem to think it is entirely a means of expression of personality. In terms of fatness, depending on whether you define “fat” as morbidly obese, obese, or just plain ‘plump,’ there is not a consensus on this.

Similarly, because people accurately believe that they can make choices about what they eat, at least on a meal-to-meal basis, there is (was?) good reason to suggest that fatness, skinniness, and everything in between has some voluntary component. That would make it more likely to have a link to a personality trait (though not necessarily laziness, mind you. Maybe fat people are more likely to enjoy Bach and skinny people prefer Handel.)

So it doesn’t seem insane to think of studying body size and personality links, though obviously the choice of laziness is based in societal bias.

I mean really you haven’t noticed that fat people vary in character and temperament, this is unbelieveable.

This does not in any way rule out a correlation between body types and personality traits. It rules out a correlation of 1 or -1, but no one suggested anything of the sort. Correlations are real-valued.

It isn’t? Let’s rethink phrenology then. I mean really you haven’t noticed that fat people vary in character and temperament, this is unbelieveable. Why not ask why or even if people really believe fat employees are lazy etc?

This pretence that fat people are somehow passengers being carried by their fellow slim co-workers has been carefully orchestrated by those who believe stigmatizing fat people will encourage them to slim down.

Also, the public have decided to go along with it, it’s no secret many’s the vox pop where people say ‘yes, I think we need to discrimate more against fat people’ and suchlike.

Those of us who’ve been around have seen people train themselves to go grrrrrrr, whenever the talk goes to any aspect of ‘obesity’. It’s wilful collusion on all our parts whatever the reasons. To suggest otherwise is strains credulity.

If the study had indicated that fat people were lazy workers, would that make it OK to discriminate against them?

Well, first you’d have to establish causation rather than mere correlation - people with braces tend to be less competent than people without, mainly because those few who still wear them are in their early 20’s and are probably interns. But it would be absurd and ridiculous to use that as a base to conclude that a 35 year old man, who is wearing them for specific medical reasons, is only as competent as an intern.

And then you’d have to make sure that causation runs in a specific direction - namely, that being lazy makes one fat, rather than the experience of being fat taking an emotional toll which makes one less productive.

That last point might not matter too much to some, but it ties into the third and last hurdle to be cleared, which is the moral question.

So basically I’m saying no. I wouldn’t bet on anti-fat prejudice to clear a single one of these hurdles, let alone all three. But on that, I think we’re all in agreement.

So, given that, why aren’t we seeing a flood of studies to prove that, for instance, blue eyes aren’t correlated to dishonesty? There’s no reason to assume they’re *not* correlated to dishonesty. Am I just to look at blue-eyed people and assume they’re as honest as everyoen else? We should do a study to prove or disprove this rather than just making the assumption that blue eyes and honesty have no correlation. So why is no one doing that study? Ah - yes - cuz no one’s making the claim.

Excellent point. One has to pay just as much attention to the meta-narrative as to the explicit narrative.

You see this all the time with political scandals. The issue gets put live on CNN or NBC, a talking haircut from an institute goes “it’s true that blah blah blah”… and a different haircut from a different institute goes “no it’s not true that blah blah blah”. The hucksters don’t need their side to *win* these kangaroo court debates, because they’ve already won in implanting or reinforcing the meme into public mythology. “Fat people are lazy blah blah blah.” “No, fat people are not lazy blah blah blah.”

Are we going to see a study on whether the Germans are inherently a warlike people? Given their history, it wouldn’t be an unreasonable question for, say, an alien whose only knowledge of Germans is from a history textbook. But those of us who have known people of German ancestry, and have been taught an understanding of history beyond rote memorization of names and dates, would not take this question seriously. So no, we probably won’t see that study. But I bet we’ll see a lot more studies trying to verify or debunk the idea that Black people are less intelligent.

I’m not saying this study is bad, or that its team of researchers is bad, or that Amp and Daran are bad for spreading the news about it. No the study is good, because sometimes you need ammunition. But I also understand Mandolin’s point. Brandon’s point, while pedantically true, opens itself to simplistic interpretation and abuse.

I’m not ragging on this study in particular (perhaps because it does reaffirm what I already believed), but urging a healthy skepticism of studies in general. I like facts as much as the next logical person, but I’ve also read a number of scientific reports that just fall apart if you poke them too hard with the logic stick. (Most of these, though, pertain to evolutionary psychology.)

Hmm. I agree that studies aren’t Scripture and that we shouldn’tbow before official seals and inks, but parts of your comment (”perhaps because it does reaffirm what I already believed”…, poking too hard papers only on a specific subject) could be interpreted justify rejecting papers whose conclusions we don’t like, without of course explicitly advocating it.

I only say this because it bugs me a bit how “skepticism” is a value word in our culture, and that if you say you’re a “skeptic”, the rightness of your intention is beyond reproach. If the positive side provides a reasonable collection of evidence, at some point it becomes incumbent to (a) provide contrary evidence, not merely contrary “logic”, because one man’s logic is another’s rationalization, something that persistently plagues this evolutionary psychology you mention, and (b) state a positive position of your own. (b) is not a must in the strictest sense, but I find that when you get down to it all people have motivations and no one debates for the hell of it. So it’s a test of honesty, mainly.

Sorry, I used your comment, Tanglethis, mainly to springboard on a personal tangent (is comment #25 too soon?), and I didn’t mean it as an attack on you.

Consider this gem from J Michael Bailey’s 2003 book TMWWBQ: “Gay people were all feminine in childhood and deny it due to femiphobia*.”

*Femiphobia: A term he invented I believe. It’s supposed to mean “being scared of feminity in themselves”.

The argument is fallacious because it invokes an ‘all x are/were y’ argument (and as such a single exception could invalidate it). But suppose he said ‘most’. He didn’t do much of a study for his book, and didn’t reference any other. While it may be an evident stereotype, paraded by the Kenneth J Zuckers, Richard Green, George A Rekers of the world and others like them, probably NARTH too - it’s not even verified.

Some tendencial claims have been made about handedness and queerness (in real studies). Left-handed or ambidextrous children are more likely to be gay or bisexual or transsexual than right-handed people. They are disproportionately left-handed. I have no idea what purpose it serves to know that. Seems to me to be like digit ratios and brain sex, meaning serving no purpose.

Refuting bad stereotypes that are stamped upon the oppressed is a good thing though, since those same classes can usually not defend themselves adequately, or are offered no platform to do so, or are simply not heard, like the old saying “Its your sickness speaking.”

So we have those stereotypes:

-Gay men have all been feminine at least in childhood
-Transsexuals are especially suited for prostitution, dislike long-term relationships, will often shoplift, and hang in strip bars (as workers), are unable to hold a decent job (never mind the hiring discrimination, its their fault), are all perverts.
-’Perversions’ are necessarily bad (even if they’re consensual, don’t involve innocent bystanders, hurt and coerce no one, and involve adult humans only).
-Lesbian women all hate men, are all radical feminists, are all separatists basically paint them a portrait of Heart minus the 11 children and 3 husbands.
-Feminism is the sole reason men have problems in courts or with the government.
-Rape victims ask for it (wether male or female).
-Males cannot be raped. Especially by a woman. If they do it’s not rape, its free sex.
-Black people are more prone to crime.
-Black people are louder and more obnoxious.
-Asian people are all super-intelligent workaholics who open drug stores and convenience stores only.
-Americans are all Christians.
-Canadians are all Catholics or Protestants, but Catholics are not Christian (go figure that one).
-Studious people are all nerds.
-All nerds wear glasses (the thicker the better), have zero social skills, and are almost entirely male (female nerds are made invisible or tokenized). They represent the loser (unmasculine, shy, who can’t get a date) kind of man.
-All football players are jerk jocks.
-All cheerleaders are dumb blondes who date jerk jocks.
-Any girl or woman who’s involved at a competitive level in a sport (less than olympic here, just any organized team that competes against other teams) HAS to be masculine or butch. Similarly any guy who does also has to be masculine.
-All men think with their dicks and will never refuse sex. If they do they are gay.
-All women want children.
-All women want to marry and a huge ceremony for the wedding.

…that should be enough.

Those I heard or seen a lot being trotted as truth, or at least being uncontested.

But seriously, I like your blog, Daran.

Thanks, Kevin.

No. Stereotype threat works in very specific ways. There’s no suggestion they were invoked here.

…because it’s possible that a sort of “stereotype threat” effect from living in a fatophobic society could have led to less productivity among fat workers.

In my experience — not a scientific measure, of course — fat people on the whole tend to be *more* active and productive, because of the need to ‘work twice as hard to be thought half as good’.

Similarly, it won’t surprise me if some future study finds a link between being fat and being depressed or unhappy — because I think that being in a a marginalized group could easily make someone more likely to exhibit depression and unhappiness.

This research already exists. However, fat-phobic researchers and journalists have tended to report these findings as suggesting that (a) being depressed causes people to ‘eat too much’ and therefore gain weight or (b) depressed fat people should be ‘helped to lose weight’ so they won’t be so depressed. (I guess those researchers missed the study that shows exceptionally high levels of depression occuring *after* weight loss.)

Since the disproving of phrenology, and given the preponderance of empirical evidence already on the side of things like “no, body size is not correlated to intelligence” (how could you prove this, particularly given that body size changes? what biological sense does it make?) — a claim such as “fat people are just lazy” is an extraordinary claim, requiring extraordinary evidence.

I’m glad that the study found the results it did, but I wouldn’t have been entirely surprised if it had found that fat workers were often lazier workers. Not because I think there’s any intrinsic relationship between fat and lazy, but because it’s possible that a sort of “stereotype threat” effect from living in a fatophobic society could have led to less productivity among fat workers.

Similarly, it won’t surprise me if some future study finds a link between being fat and being depressed or unhappy — because I think that being in a a marginalized group could easily make someone more likely to exhibit depression and unhappiness.