Date of Award

Summer 8-2021

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Donna Thomas

Abstract

As the population of people struggling with obesity has grown, so has the discrimination and stigmatization of obese individuals. Psychological flexibility has been found to partially mediate the relationship between stigmatizing attitudes and psychological distress for those who hold stigmatizing attitudes toward individuals struggling with mental illness, such that high stigmatizing attitudes about individuals with psychological disorders is associated with low psychological flexibility and low psychological flexibility is associated with high psychological distress. Currently there is no research in the extant literature regarding the relationship between anti-fat attitudes, psychological distress, and psychological flexibility. As such, the present study examined the relationship between anti-fat attitudes and psychological distress, and psychological flexibility as a possible mediator of the relationship. A total of 300 participants were recruited via Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, the final sample size consisted of 265 subjects. Upon consent participants answered demographics questions and then completed the Acceptance and Action Questionnaire-II (AAQ-II), the Antifat Attitudes Questionnaire (AFAQ), and the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-42). Data were analyzed in SPSS via AMOS using structural equation modeling to examine the relationship between anti-fat attitudes and psychological distress and the relationship between anti-fat attitudes and psychological flexibility. If there was a relationship between anti-fat attitudes and psychological distress, then psychological flexibility was planned to be examined as a potential mediator of this relationship.

Download

Share

COinS