Table 1
Description of the implicit and explicit measures.
| Measure | Construct | Scale/scoring | Example statement | Internal consistency |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Beliefs About Obese Persons scale (BAOP; Allison, Basile, & Yuker, 1991) | The extent to which an individual believes that obesity is under an individual’s control. | Eight items, measured on a six-point Likert scale, referring to the extent of agreement or disagreement (−3 to +3) to each statement. Scores range from 0–48 with higher scores indicating stronger beliefs about the controllability of obesity. After summing the items value 24 is added. Thus scores range between 0–48. | “Obesity is really caused by lack of willpower.” | Internal consistency is satisfactory with Cronbach’s alpha scores ranging between .65–.83 (e.g., Allison et al., 1991). |
| Attitudes Towards Obese Persons scale (ATOP; Allison et al., 1991) | Positive and negative attitudes towards obese people. | Twenty items measured on a six-point Likert scale used to show the extent of agreement or disagreement (+3 to −3). Scores range from 0–120 with higher scores indicative of more positive attitudes towards obese persons. After summing the responses to the items, 60 is added to the total. Thus scores range between 0 and 120. | “Obese workers cannot be as successful as other workers.” | Internal consistency is satisfactory with Cronbach’s alpha scores ranging from .80 to .84 (Allison et al., 1991). |
| The Implicit Association Test (IAT; Greenwald, McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998) | A computer-based measure of implicit attitudes which will be modified in this study to assess attitudes towards fatness and thinness. | Scores range between −1 and 1 with positive scores indicative of implicit anti-fat or pro-thin preference. The seven block IAT will be employed as described by Greenwald, Nosek, and Banaji (2003, see Table 2). The quicker participants assign stimuli to the grouping categories in blocks 4 and 7, the stronger implicit attitude towards the pairings. | Stimuli words will be assigned to pre-determined categories by pressing either the E or I keys on the keyboard. Stimuli words include “fat”, “thin”, “happy” and “failure”. | Internal consistency is satisfactory with Cronbach’s alpha ranging from .7 to .9 (e.g., Greenwald et al., 1998). |
| The Short Form European Prospective Investigation into Cancer and Nutrition Physical Activity Questionnaire (EPIC; Wareham et al., 2003) | Used to assess the level of physical activity of sampled occupations. | Four-point, mutually exclusive, ordered categories concerning physical activity at work over the past year. Occupational activity falls into the following categories: sedentary, standing, manual work, and heavy manual work. | “Standing occupation: You spend most of your time standing and walking. However, your work does not require intense physical effort (e.g., shop assistant, hairdresser, guard, etc.).” | The repeatability of the derived index is acceptable (weighted kappa statistic = 0.6; Wareham et al., 2003). Therefore, the short EPIC questionnaire was considered to be an adequate activity-ranking instrument (Westerterp, 2009). |
Table 2
Seven Block IAT (Greenwald et al., 1998).
| Block | No. of Trials | Task | Grouping categories | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Left Key | Right Key | |||
| Block 1 | 20 | Discrimination | Fat | Thin |
| Block 2 | 20 | Attribute | Pleasant | Unpleasant |
| Block 3 | 20 | Discrimination and attribute combined (practice) | Fat, Pleasant | Thin, Unpleasant |
| Block 4 | 40 | Discrimination and Attribute combined (test) | Fat, Pleasant | Thin, Unpleasant |
| Block 5 | 20 | Reversed Discrimination | Unpleasant | Pleasant |
| Block 6 | 20 | Reversed Discrimination and attribute combined (practice) | Unpleasant, Fat | Pleasant, Thin |
| Block 7 | 40 | Reversed Discrimination and attribute combined (test) | Unpleasant, Fat | Pleasant, Thin |