Weight-based Discrimination

Prejudice: A strong negative attitude towards members of a group.
Discrimination: Negative and harmful behavior that results from prejudice.

Weight-based discrimination refers to discrimination towards overweight or obese individuals that influences how these people are treated.

All my life, weight has been a huge struggle for me. This is probably because I have a huge appetite and am always thinking, reading and preparing food. I have dieted several times and sometimes the diets work and sometimes they don’t. As a result, my weight has always fluctuated quite a bit but I have been on the heavy side for most of my life.

Fortunately for me, I have never been a victim of overt weight discrimination (not that I was aware of). However, I feel that even without such a blatant experience, I have still been significantly affected by the attitudes of society towards overweight people.

The media often portrays overweight or obese people as lazy, greedy people who have no self control. I would say that in 99% of the movies I have watched, the heroes and heroines are always slim and toned. The large amount of slimming advertisements in the newspapers all send the message that your life would be perfect if only you were slim. It appears that it is almost impossible to avoid being brainwashed by the media into thinking that fat is bad and slim is good.

Despite knowing that this message is not true and that it is the inside that counts more than external appearance, I often find myself wishing I was slimmer. If I were slim, I would not have such trouble finding clothing to wear in Singapore, I would be healthier, I would feel more attractive, e.t.c. e.t.c……..

Weight based discrimination can be more serious and can even affect chances of employment and salary levels. This might occur even when appearance is not of importance in determining the quality of a job.

Something must be done to change the messages sent to people everywhere. I feel that the media plays a very important role in doing this. The process to change will be very slow and difficult as this attitude is a very persistent one. Overweight people should be portrayed more favorably in the media. Using plus sized models and perhaps promoting the acceptance of people of all sizes in Singapore might also help with this problem, as this will help people to gradually stop thinking that 'fat' people are any less than thin people.

Cognitive Dissonance Theory

Definition: The feeling of discomfort that is caused when we have 2 or more thoughts that do not correlate with each other or when our behavior is different from our usual, mostly positive self image. When this discomfort is experienced, we feel motivated to reduce it.

We can reduce the feeling of discomfort by changing our behavior, changing our attitude, or by adding new cognitions.

Yesterday, I went to Carrefour to buy a new television set.
My cheap old Cathode Ray Tube (C. R. T.) television had broken down.
I wanted to get a new cheap television and I did not care about whether it was LCD or Plasma.
My dad was with me when I went. He advised me that C. R. T. TVs were very out of date and that I should definitely get a flat screen one.
As my dad was paying for the set, I listened to him and picked out the flat screen that came with most value for cent.
It turned out that the cheapest one was about $469.
When my mum heard about what I was going to buy she was a little concerned about the price.
Even though my dad was paying, I did not want to waste his money paying for something unnecessarily expensive.
This brought up a lot of feelings of cognitive dissonance within me.

Self Concept = I felt that I did not really need such an expensive TV
Conflicting Behavior = Buying the expensive television set.

To reduce the dissonance, I could have
1. Not bought the expensive TV
2. Told myself that my dad was right and that buying the cheaper C. R. T TVs was a waste of money as they would be out of date soon and would not as long
3. Told myself that LCD TVs are so much better than C.R.T TVs and that I really needed to get one.

Before paying for it, I kept justifying to myself why I was buying the set, using no. 2 and 3 to ease my guilt.

After setting up the television set in my room, I watched something on it.
I’m not sure if I was experiencing effort justification (perceiving that something is good as suffering (high cost) was done to get it) but while watching the show, I felt that the picture had never been so wonderful and clear.

Overjustification effect

In this blog, I would like to focus on the textbook topic

Social Perception: Perceiving the Self and Others
This topic looks into how people judge other people and themselves.

Self-perception theory
The self-perception theory is one that suggests that when we evaluate our own internal states, we do so by comparing them with our past behaviour and deduce internal states that correlate with our current behaviour unless there were obvious environmental causes of our behaviour. Research has shown evidence that this theory holds through for internal states that are clearly defined as opposed to weak and ambiguous.

Overjustification effect
Overjustification effect is the inference that we participated in a potentially enjoyable task for the sake of receiving a reward rather than because we enjoyed it. Research has shown that when a reward is given for quality of effort as opposed to mere participation, this might actually increase intrinsic motivation.

According to the overjustification effect, a person who enjoys mathematics and works as an accountant will probably lose an interest in mathematic. This is because in his job, he would probably be paid his salary for simply doing mathematics constantly.

This theory might explain why most people I know do not seem to like their jobs and usually focus on getting their salary rather than enjoy the process of going to work everyday. The theory also suggests that if a boss recognizes when an employee works well (high quality work) and responds by them bonuses (rewards), employees are more likely to increase in their liking for their jobs.

Personally, I enjoy baking very much. I have also been selling my home baked cakes to my friends and family for some time. Despite the fact that I am rewarded with money for performing my hobby, my intrinsic interest for baking has not decreased. In fact, I am currently more interested in baking than ever. I suppose that I have not lost interest in baking as every time I make something for a customer, I have to ensure that the quality of the cakes is as good as or better than previously (I am only rewarded if I achieve high quality cakes. If not, I lose a customer.)

I realize that I often reward people far more than necessary. After going through this topic in lecture, I have become much more cautious when I deal with people. I think twice before rewarding them. This is the case especially when I deal with children as the overjustification effect appears to have quite a large impact on them.