The effect of participant age on
attitudes toward people with
disabilities
Lauron Haney and Carrie Burkhardt
Hanover College
Legislation
• Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
o Provided protection from discrimination in areas such as
employment and public accommodations
• Of Americans with disabilities:
o 18.6% reported being employed compared to 63.5% of
non-disabled Americans (U.S. Department of Labor)
o 61% reported the ADA having no effect on their life (2010
Kessler Foundation/NOD Survey of Americans with Disabilities)
Effects of Contact
• Extended contact with individuals with disabilities makes
people's attitudes toward disabilities more positive.
o Family members (Goreczny, Bender, Caruso, & Feinstein, 2011)
o Work experience (Goreczny et al., 2011)
o Educational programs (Klooster, Dannenberg, Taal, Burger, & Rasker, 2009;
Cameron & Rutland, 2006)
Ableism
• Prejudice or discrimination against individuals with
developmental, mental, or physical disabilities
o Belief that people with disabilities are unable to function
as full members of society or need to be "fixed" (Smith, Foley, &
Chaney, 2008)
Explicit attitudes
• Attitudes that the individual acknowledges possessing
(McCaughey & Strohmer, 2005)
• Measured through
• Self-reports of explicit attitudes
• Projective measures (e.g., Multidimensional Attitudes
Toward Persons with Disabilities Scale)
Implicit attitudes
• Attitudes that are not consciously acknowledged (Greenwald,
McGhee, & Schwartz, 1998)
• Most widely measured through Implicit Association Tests
(IAT) (Thomas, Smith, & Ball, 2007)
• Utilized to prevent false reporting related to social
desirability bias
o Social desirability bias: responding in a manner to make
oneself appear more acceptable (McCaughey & Strohmer, 2005)
Basic premise of an IAT
• Computer-based
• Designed to examine the strength of an individual's
automatic associations between a concept and an attribute
• Measures response time when sorting concepts and
attributes into categories
IAT
• Faster pairing indicates a stronger association between the
given target and attribute (Nosek, Greenwald, & Banaji, 2005; Thomas, Smith, &
Ball, 2007)
• IAT results are a reflection on the society in which one
lives (Agerstrom, Bjorklund, & Carlsson, 2011)
Hypotheses
• Hypothesis 1: We predicted that implicit attitudes toward
individuals with physical disabilities would be more negative
than explicit attitudes.
• Hypothesis 2: We predicted that younger adults would report
more positive explicit and implicit attitudes toward individuals
with physical disabilities than would older adults.
Method
• Online survey
•
•
•
•
Contact with people with disabilities
Multidimensional Attitudes Toward People with Disabilities Scale
Explicit attitude self-report
Implicit Associations Test
• Recruited participants using social media websites and the
Hanover psychology website
• Participants: 138 responded, 127 used
• 34.6% male, 65.4% female
• 18-60 years old (Mean=25.95 years, Median=22 years)
Measures
• Contact with disabled persons
o Experience with people with disabilities (1-10 Likert scale)
Multidimensional Attitude Toward
People with Disabilities Scale
Michelle went out for lunch with some friends to a coffee
shop. A woman in a wheelchair, with whom Michelle is not
acquainted, enters the coffee shop and joins the
group. Michelle is introduced to this person, and shortly
thereafter, everyone else leaves, with only Michelle and the
woman in the wheelchair remaining alone together at the
table. Michelle has 15 minutes to wait for her ride. Try to
imagine this situation.
• Rate the likelihood that the individual in the scenario would
feel, think, or behave in specific ways on a 5 point Likert scale
o “Get up and leave”
Measures
•
Self-report
o Which statement best describes you?
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Strongly prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Moderately prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Slightly prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Little preference.
Slightly prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Moderately prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Strongly prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Measures
•
Disability IAT https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/demo/selectatest.html
o Self-report IAT results
o
o
o
o
o
o
o
Strongly prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Moderately prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Slightly prefer abled persons to disabled persons.
Little preference.
Slightly prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Moderately prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Strongly prefer disabled persons to abled persons.
Comparison of Explicit and Implicit
Attitudes
t(127)=6.48, p<0.001
Results
Three regressions:
• Predictor variables: age and experience with people with
disabilities
• Outcome variable: MAS
o Not significant
• Outcome variable: Self-report of explicit attitudes
o β=.48, t(123)=1.93, p=0.05
• Outcome variable: IAT
o β=.43, t(123)=1.68, p<0.10
• Older participants showed more negative attitudes toward
people with disabilities than did younger participants
implicitly and explicitly.
Limitations and Future Directions
• Restriction of range
o Few older participants
• How effective is having experience with people with
disabilities?
Discussion
• Legislation seems to have been somewhat effective
• People are not necessarily aware of implicit attitudes they
possess
• In spite of differences in attitudes between younger and
older participants, discrimination still exists.
Questions?