Big size with big heart: The effect of body size cue on perceived forgivingness

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Higher body weight was consistently perceived as more forgiving across implicit association and rating tasks.
Perceived warmth mediated the body size effect on forgivingness; perceived competence did not.
Abdominal higher weight more strongly signalled forgivingness, and participants preferred higher weight partners for cooperation after frequent errors.

Br J Psychol. 2026 Jul 3. doi: 10.1111/bjop.70098. Online ahead of print.

ABSTRACT

Forgivingness, a traditionally moral trait, has been extensively studied from a first-person perspective. However, there is little empirical research that discusses it from a third-person perspective. In the current study, we examined whether body size serves as a cue from which Chinese participants infer others’ forgivingness. Across five experiments, we examined the body-size-forgivingness association and, drawing on the Stereotype Content Model and Implicit Personality Theory, tested whether perceived warmth accounted for this association. Results showed that participants perceived higher weight (vs. lower weight) targets as more forgiving in an implicit association test (Experiment 1) and a slider rating task (Experiment 2). In a simulation where participants committed many errors, they preferred to invite higher weight targets rather than lower weight targets for cooperation because they thought that higher weight targets were more forgiving (Experiment 3). Additionally, compared to gluteal higher weight, abdominal higher weight was particularly linked to forgivingness (Experiment 4). Mediation analysis revealed that perceived warmth but not perceived competence mediated the effect of body size on perceived forgivingness (Experiment 5). These findings suggest that, among Chinese participants, body size can shape perceived forgivingness as a specific warmth-related moral inference.

PMID:42400194 | DOI:10.1111/bjop.70098

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