Fat chance for a favor

Obese-normal differences in compliance and incidental learning

Bibliographic Data

ID10159010
AuthorsJudith Rodin (0009-0006-3008-8631, corresponding author), Joyce Slochower (0000-0002-6937-708X)
Year1974
Volume29
Issue4
Pages557-565
Publication date1974-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (PUBLISHER • US)
DOI10.1037/h0036209
OpenAlexW2033191839
LanguageEN
Citations received12
References cited11

The behavior of obese individuals has been characterized as stimulus bound. To extend this hypothesis, the effects of manipulations of salient external cues on incidental learning and compliance were tested for overweight and normal subjects. High- or low-potency trigrams were presented incidentally, under conditions of high, low, or no distraction. A significant triple-order interaction for subject weight, cue potency, and distraction was obtained. Subsequently, subjects were asked to comply with the request of a heavy or slim confederate whose behavior had been quite pleasant, neutral, or extremely nasty. Both the weight and behavior of the person making the request had a greater effect on the compliance of overweight subjects than on that of normals. Recent research has established that the eaiting behavior of overweight people is highly responsive to food-relevant environmental cues and is relatively unresponsive to internal visceral cues (Nisbett, 1968; Schachter & Gross, 1968; Schachter, Goldman, & Gordon, 1968). Because it seemed possible that this heightened external responsiveness might also hold for non-food-related stimuli, Rodin, Herman, and Schachter (1974) measured overweight and normal-weight subjects in a number of perceptual tasks that have been assumed to tell something about the likelihood that a stimulus will trigger a response. They found that obese subjects were faster than were normals in choice reaction time and that they had lower tachistoscopic recognition thresholds and better immediate recall for items briefly exposed on a slide. In considering these results, Rodin (1973) reasoned that the overweight subject is stimulus bound and therefore gripped by impinging external cues. Consequently, when a task is salient and no other prominent external stimuli are present, obese subjects perform as well or better than normals. However, distracting irrelevant cues may also compel attention and thus disrupt task performance for the obese. Rodin found

Compliance (psychology · Developmental psychology · Behavioral and Psychological Studies · Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies · Psychology · Psychology of Social Influence · Social Psychology