Attributions and Expectations for the Behavior of Persons With Brain Injury

Abstract

Visible markers of brain injury such as scars are spurious markers of severity that shape attributions for actions of persons with the injury and expectations that problematic behaviors will persist. The results inform strategies for correcting misunderstandings about brain injury and enhancing rehabilitation.

Attributions about persons with brain injury: The effects of knowledge and familiarity about brain injury

“…Visible markers of brain injury activated brain injury explanations for the behaviours, whereas, in the absence of these markers, people attributed the behaviours more to adolescent norms [8,9,13]. This finding suggests that, when there were no visible markers of injury, participants applied stereotypes about adolescent norms because the target behaviours were typical adolescent behaviours.…”

“…The experimental design thus examined participants' responses in conditions closer to everyday contexts where people are not informed about a person's medical condition. A second difference from previous studies involved engaging participants from the wider population rather than solely students, to determine whether the effects generalize beyond students [8,9,13].…”

“…An implication of this research is that having no injury markers can be problematic for survivors of brain injury, because no allowance is made for the injury as the cause of undesirable behaviour [8,13]. This reasoning suggests a cost to having no markers of injury [14].…”

“…Recent research has clarified the effect of visible markers of disability on explanations of undesirable behaviours that had been seen as common for both adolescents and individuals with brain injury [8,9,13]. Visible markers of brain injury activated brain injury explanations for the behaviours, whereas, in the absence of these markers, people attributed the behaviours more to adolescent norms [8,9,13].…”

“…Expanding on previous research [8,9,13], these studies examined how people's attributions for the undesirable behaviour of a male adolescent with a brain injury were affected by their knowledge and familiarity about brain injury. As in previous studies, visible markers of injury (scar or no scar) were manipulated to ascertain whether visual markers of injury influenced participants' attributions for the adolescent's behaviours.…”