Implicit Attitudes towards People with Intellectual Disabilities: Their Relationship with Explicit Attitudes, Social Distance, Emotions and Contact

Abstract

Implicit attitude research has expanded rapidly over the last decade and is seen as very promising as it counters biases present in much attitude research such as social desirability. However, most research in the area of intellectual disabilities has focused on explicit attitudes alone. This study examined implicit attitudes to this population and also examined their association with emotional reactions and contact, which have previously been found to have a significant influence on attitudes and stigma. A web based survey consisting of a single target Implicit Association Test, measures of explicit attitudes, social distance, and emotional reactions towards and contact with individuals with intellectual disabilities was completed by 326 adult UK residents. Implicit attitudes were not significantly associated with explicit attitudes, social distance or emotional reactions. Instead there were small to moderate associations between emotional reactions and explicit attitudes and social distance. Implicit attitudes did not vary according to participants’ level of contact with individuals with intellectual disabilities, type of the contact relationship (voluntary versus involuntary), gender or educational attainment. In contrast, these participant characteristics did affect explicit attitudes and social distance. Implicit attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disabilities were somewhat negative and, unlike explicit attitudes and stigma, did not vary according to participant demographics or contact. As they may have a negative impact on the lives of people with intellectual disabilities, implicit attitudes merit increased attention in research and interventions in the intellectual disabilities field.

Examining genetic counselors’ implicit attitudes toward disability

“…Literature assessing the validity of the IAT has found little correlation between explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes, specifically regarding bias toward disability (Nosek et al, ; Pruett & Chan, ; Wilson & Scior, ). This may be expected given the social desirability of being neutral in one's attitudes toward disability.…”

“…This may be expected given the social desirability of being neutral in one's attitudes toward disability. In contrast, critiques of the IAT have suggested that the tool measures a single response to a visual stimuli rather than the more complex response that humans might experience (De Houwer, ; Wilson & Scior, ). De Houwer explains an example of this concept in which one may have conflicting attitudes toward a friend displaying a negative facial expression.…”

“…One important distinction, and potential underlying rationale for results obtained from the DA-IAT in this study, is that participants are asked to categorize visual stimuli associated with ability versus disability. For example: an accessible parking figure and a stick figure skiing, rather than pictures of individuals with and without disabili- Literature assessing the validity of the IAT has found little correlation between explicit attitudes and implicit attitudes, specifically regarding bias toward disability (Nosek et al, 2007;Pruett & Chan, 2006;Wilson & Scior, 2015). This may be expected given the social desirability of being neutral in one's attitudes toward disability.…”

Explicit and implicit attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities: The role of contact and participant demographics

“…An online survey was used to collect the data. Measures used were the Attitudes Toward Intellectual Disability (ATTID) questionnaire (Morin, Crocker, Beaulieu‐Bergeron, & Caron, ) to collect self‐report data concerning explicit attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities, and the single‐target IAT (ST‐IAT) (Wilson & Scior, ) to measure implicit attitudes to intellectual disability. The order of presenting both measures was varied randomly to test for order effects.…”

“…An adaptation of the IAT (Greenwald et al., ) was used for this study, the ST‐IAT developed by Wilson and Scior (), which showed good internal consistency of α = .70 across the 40 test trials. This used only one target concept, that is “intellectual disability,” rather than the two used in the classical IAT as there is no obvious complementary target concept to use alongside that of intellectual disability.…”