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Date of Award

1-1-2027

Document Type

Dissertation - NSU Access Only

Degree Name

Doctor of Psychology (PsyD)

First Advisor

Paula Brochu

Keywords

disgust; explicit weight bias; implicit weight bias; psychology trainees; weight controllability beliefs

Abstract

Weight bias refers to the negative attitudes, stereotypes, and discriminatory behaviors directed towards individuals due to their weight (Diedrichs & Puhl, 2016). In mental health settings, clinician weight bias can negatively affect client well-being, treatment planning, and therapeutic outcomes (Philips et al., 2025). Previous research has identified associations between weight controllability beliefs, feelings of disgust toward fat individuals, and explicit weight bias (Vartanian, 2010a). Examining these processes during clinical training may help inform efforts to prevent future client harm. The present study examines the associations between weight controllability beliefs, feelings of disgust toward fat individuals, and weight bias to inform a theoretical model in which these factors facilitate the development and expression of weight bias. Additionally, this study extends prior research by testing the model with implicit weight bias. Mediation analyses were conducted to evaluate whether feelings of disgust toward fat individuals statistically mediates the association between weight controllability beliefs and both explicit and implicit weight bias in a sample of 1,047 clinical psychology doctoral trainees from APA-accredited programs across the United States. Results indicated that both weight controllability beliefs and feelings of disgust toward fat individuals were positively associated with explicit dislike of fat individuals, explicit preference for thin to fat individuals, and implicit weight bias. The alternative mediation models, in which feelings of disgust served as the predictor variable and weight controllability beliefs as the mediating variable, were also tested. Mediation analyses suggested that both of these factors contribute to the expression of weight bias in clinical psychology trainees. For implicit weight bias, the primary mediation model’s indirect effect was not significant, however, the alternative model demonstrated a significant indirect effect. The findings extend previous research by demonstrating similar patterns across implicit attitudes. The results of the present study demonstrate the importance of targeting both weight controllability beliefs and feelings of disgust toward fat individuals in weight bias reduction interventions implemented in clinical training programs.

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