Height, Weight, and Body Fat: Assessments of Covariation Based on Visual Information or Reported Correlations

Abstract

College students' intuitive judgments about covariations between height, weight, and body fat were assessed in three experiments using responses to a series of propositional statements as the dependent variable. In Exp. 1, judgments were rendered without explicit exposure to a prior database. In Exps. 2 and 3, however, databases were studied prior to these judgments. Remarkable consistencies in judgments of weight and body fat, height and weight as well as of height and body fat were obtained across experiments. At best, there was little evidence that the databases influenced the judged covariations among these variables. Whereas judgments about weight and body fat were unambiguous and consistent with the actual positive correlation between weight and body fat, judgments about height and weight as well as height and body fat were less clearcut. What was clear, however, was that these judgments were highly similar. Implications of these findings from previous research that suggest that presence of a perceived negative correlation between height and body fat are discussed.