The effects of causal beliefs and binge eating on the stigmatization of obesity.

Objective: Weight disorders and overeating are increasingly labeled as addictions. It is important to identify the consequences of this label on the stigmatization of obesity.

Method: Participants (N = 374) were assigned randomly to one of six conditions, in which they read a scenario about an obese woman either with or without binge eating, followed by an account of the cause of her obesity as psychological, a biological addiction, or ambiguous.

Responding and failing to respond to both hypnosis and a kinesthetic illusion, Chevreul's Pendulum.

In this study, participants who failed to exhibit pendulum movement in response to Chevreul's Pendulum (CP) instructions had lower Stanford Hypnotic Susceptibility Scale, Form A (SHSS:A) scores and reported experiencing less subjective response to hypnosis than did their counterparts who exhibited CP movement. However, intensity scores on Shor's Personal Experiences Questionnaire (PEQ) did not differ between pass- and fail-CP groups. Additionally, pass-CP participants showed positive correlations between PEQ intensity scores and hypnotizability scores, while fail-CP participants showed negative correlations among these measures.