Research highlights prejudices against people with disabilities

Having to travel in a wheelchair can slow down a myriad of opportunities, some less obvious than you might think. A new study from Michigan State University has highlighted the prejudices of people with disabilities, called "disabilities," and their evolution over time.

Contrary to popular belief, the findings suggest that prejudice toward people with disabilities increases with age and over time, but that people are less likely to show what they actually feel in public.

Disabilities are a delicate and uncomfortable subject that many people can talk about. Few are willing to recognize bias towards people with disabilities. Because this is so little studied, the purpose of our research was to determine why and what types of people have higher prejudices towards people with disabilities. "

William Chopik, Assistant Professor of Psychology at MSU, Lead Author

The research, published in the Journal of Social Issues, is the largest of its kind to use data from 300,000 participants over 13 years. The participants were between 18 and 90 years old and 15% declared themselves disabled.

Authors Jenna Harder, Victor Keller and Chopik used data from Project Implicit, a platform for users to learn and anonymously measure bias. The platform defined disability as "a kind of physical, mental or emotional limitation" and asked a series of questions measuring feelings towards people with disabilities. The researchers also measured the number of participants' contacts with the disability community using a scale from 1 to 7, with 1 being "know someone" and 7 "having constant contact" with a person with a disability.

Researchers used surveys to measure implicit attitudes and explicit biases. Harder explained that an implied attitude is a thought or feeling that occurs automatically and is difficult to control, suppress or regulate. Explicit attitudes, she said, are things with which people are consciously in agreement and are more controllable because that is the way people express or represent their opinion on something publicly. . We can think about what they will say and filter if necessary, she said.

The researchers found that respondents' implicit biases increased over time and with age, which meant that they had less favorable feelings towards people with disabilities. However, by explicitly asking how much the participants preferred people with disabilities, they shared more positive responses with time and age, which meant that they gave positive opinions about people with disabilities.

"It's a big mystery because people say externally that they feel less biased, but in reality, the implicit attitude has increased over time," Chopik said. "It is not common to express negative opinions about people with disabilities, which is why they are inclined to say things that are more pleasing to the public, and explicit changes in attitudes do not always translate into implicit prejudices."

The results also revealed that women felt less implicit bias and that people in contact with the disabled population had lower prejudices.

"Some of our findings about women are stereotypical: when you look at how men and women compare with bias, women are more sympathetic to stigmatized groups," said Harder.

"Sex was one of the most consistent predictors of this study, supporting theories that women are particularly receptive to people who, in their opinion, need help."

Chopik explained that the reduction of prejudices of people who had contact with people with disabilities was consistent with the theories of interactions with other stigmatized groups.

"If you interact more with a stigmatized group, you can potentially have more positive experiences with them, which changes your attitude," he said. "You start with a certain bias, but over time, these biases are questioned and your attitude changes because you have the opportunity to develop positive badociations with the group and see them in a different light."

Data collected from participants with disabilities showed feelings of warmth within their own community and a more positive attitude towards their peers. More a disability is visible – such as needing a wheelchair or a walker – the more positive attitude towards the disability community was strong.

Chopik highlighted the lack of research on capacity-building and hopes to encourage greater participation from academia.

"The overall goal is to increase inclusion and reduce prejudices and prejudices toward people with disabilities," said Chopik. "I think we all want to live in a society where people feel welcome and not be limited in their activities.There are many ways to change and challenge that by rethinking policies and making our daily lives more accessible."