Intergroup bias in weight controllability attributions

We examined weight controllability attributions for obese and non-obese targets who were either racial ingroup or outgroup members, predicting that attributions would be biased in favor of ingroup targets. In Experiment 1, white British participants attributed more controllability to obese than to non-obese targets overall, and this effect was more pronounced for black than for white targets. In Experiment 2, white and black American participants rated targets that were racial ingroup or outgroup members, fit or obese, and male or female. Again, the simple effect of target weight was stronger for racial outgroup than for racial ingroup targets. Consistent with past research on hierarchical category dominance for gender, the effects were stronger for same-gender targets than for opposite-gender targets.