New research from Rice University and the University of North Carolina suggests that overweight men are just as likely as overweight women to experience interpersonal discrimination when applying for a job or shopping at retail stores.

"We were interested in looking at biases toward men who are heavy in employment settings," researcher Enrica Ruggs, assistant professor of psychology at UNCC, said in a statement. "A lot of the research that has looked at weight stigmatization or discrimination toward heavy people has tended to focus on women. It's perceived as more of a critical issue surrounding women, so we wanted to see if men experience some of the same types of detriments that women face."

Researchers conducted two studies for the paper, "Weight Isn't Selling: The Insidious Effects of Weight Stigmatization in Retail Settings."

Men who are overweight are just as likely as overweight women to experience interpersonal discrimination when applying for a job or shopping at retail stores, according to new research from Rice University and the University of North Carolina, Charlotte (UNCC).

In the first study, non-overweight men went out into the field and applied for jobs at retail stores in the southern U.S. Then researchers had the same men apply for jobs at different stores wearing overweight prosthetics. The researchers also wanted to investigate if overweight men would be subjected to discrimination as customers, so the same men posed as customers and visited other retail stores. In both situations, the "actors" were given scripts to closely follow.

"We wanted to see if there were differences in treatment they received when they were not heavy versus heavy," Ruggs said.

Researchers found that when the men applied for jobs or were shopping as customers in their overweight prosthetics, they experienced more types of subtle discrimination, or what the researchers call "interpersonal discrimination."

Ruggs said the overweight men didn't experience formal discrimination or illegal types of discrimination.

"[They experienced] greater amounts of interpersonal discrimination or subtle negative behavior toward them," Ruggs said. "Employees they interacted with would try to end the interaction early, there was less affirmative behavior like less nodding or smiling; there was more avoidance types of behavior like frowning and trying to get out of the interaction."

The second study, which was conducted in a lab setting, found the same types of subtle discrimination was taking place, this time with the customer being the discriminator.

Researchers created marketing videos of five products that were generally neutral in terms of having wide appeal for a wide target market, items like luggage and coffee mugs. The actors, in this case both men and women, were again portrayed as overweight and not overweight in the different videos that test subjects were told would be used to launch a new product to be sold online.

Researchers found that participants who viewed the heavy employees' videos reported more negative stereotypical thoughts about the employee. Specifically, they thought overweight representatives were less professional, their appearance was less neat and clean and they were more careless. These stereotypical thoughts in turn led to negative evaluations of the employee as well as the organization and the products.

"It's really unfortunate," Ruggs said. "There are these really subtle influences that can have large negative effects on heavy men in the retail settings -- that's whether they're applying for jobs, they're actual employees or as customers."

Ruggs said the results are a reminder "that there is still more work to be done in terms of creating equitable workplaces for all employees, potential employees and consumers. This is something organizations can take an active role in."

The findings are detailed in the Journal of Applied Psychology.