Measuring public discomfort at meeting people with disabilities.
Public discomfort sorts into a clear ladder, with intellectual and mental health disabilities in the middle and physical disabilities at the bottom, giving BCBAs a fast stigma ruler.
01Research in Context
What this study did
McConkey (2015) asked a national sample of Irish adults how uneasy they feel meeting people with different disabilities. The survey listed traveller families, intellectual disability, mental health issues, and physical or sensory impairments. People rated discomfort on a simple scale.
The goal was to see if stigma forms a clear pecking order, and whether town size or personal ties change the ratings.
What they found
Adults felt most uneasy about meeting travellers, less uneasy about mental health or intellectual disability, and least uneasy about physical or sensory impairments. This rank order held across age and gender.
City dwellers and people with fewer disabled friends or relatives reported higher discomfort. The pattern gives a ready-made 'stigma barometer' for campaigns.
How this fits with other research
Wilson et al. (2014) reviewed 18 studies using the Implicit Association Test. They found that most people, including professionals, carry hidden negative biases that self-report surveys like Roy’s often miss. The two papers pair well: Roy shows what people admit, Clare shows what they hide.
Ferreri et al. (2011) ran a similar survey but talked to conference-goers. That group claimed warm, positive views. Roy’s random national sample paints a cooler picture, showing that convenience samples can overestimate acceptance.
Freeman (2006) asked children the same rank-order question. Older kids also rated intellectual disability lower than physical disability, suggesting the hierarchy starts early and lasts into adulthood.
Why it matters
You now have a quick scale to spot which disability labels carry the heaviest public weight in your area. Use it before anti-stigma trainings to pick the messages that need the most help, and after trainings to see if discomfort drops. Match the survey with implicit tests if you want the full picture.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
The discomfort reported by the general public at the prospect of personal contact with marginalised groups is an expression of the stigma they experience. This has been widely studied in relation to ethnic minorities and immigrants but less so for persons with disabilities. A national survey with a representative sample of over 1100 Irish adults provided an opportunity to examine reported discomfort with persons who had different impairments, including mental health conditions, with four other minority groups. Moreover, the personal and situational variables associated with expressions of discomfort were identified. Respondents were most comfortable having persons with physical and sensorial disabilities living in their neighbourhood or in their workplace but less so for persons with intellectual disabilities and even less for people with mental health conditions. They were much less comfortable with the four other social groups: gay, lesbian or bisexual people; Eastern European migrant workers; black and ethnic minority groups and least of all, travellers. Moreover, a factor analysis confirmed that the scores given to the impaired groups were significantly correlated with each other but less so with the other four social groupings, although these were significantly inter-correlated among themselves. Respondents who were more comfortable with both sets of minority groups tended to have more social connections in their personal lives and to reside in towns or villages rather than cities. They also expressed more positive attitudes to the inclusion of persons with disabilities in Irish society. The gradient in levels of public discomfort across minority groups may provide a sensitive indicator of the differential stigma experienced by persons with impairments within societies but there remains the possibility that an alliance with other minority groups would also help to promote more positive attitudes and reduce their wider social exclusion.
Research in developmental disabilities, 2015 · doi:10.1016/j.ridd.2015.06.015