Male and Female Raters' Stereotyping of Male and Female Physiques

Abstract

College males and females attributed a variety of personality traits to male and female endomorphs, mesomorphs, and ectomorphs. The data provided strong support for research conducted over the past three decades which shows that individuals possess highly favorable stereotypes of mesomorphs and highly negative stereotypes of endomorphs. However, whereas most of the early research found that individuals have generally negative stereotypes of ectomorphs, they were seen instead in generally favorable terms by subjects in this study. Finally, subjects did make several distinctions between male and female physiques when attributing traits, suggesting the importance of including assessments of both male and female physiques in future body stereotyping research.