Perceptions of Interability Communication in an Interpersonal Relationship and the Reduction of Intergroup Prejudice

Abstract

Guided by intergroup contact theory, this study examined participants’ communication with their most frequent contact with an invisible physical disability and their attitudes and stereotypes toward people with disabilities. Results indicated that participants’ perceptions of communication frequency and quality with the contact and the contact’s disclosure about disability all had a significant indirect effect on attitudes and stereotypes through social support and intergroup anxiety sequentially. Contact quality had significant negative direct and indirect effects on endorsement of stereotypes and a significant positive indirect effect on attitudes. Protective disclosure had a significant positive indirect effect on cognitive attitudes through social support.

Keywords:

• Anxiety
• Attitudes And Stereotypes
• Disability
• Intergroup Contact
• Social Support

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. The types of disability listed are not exhaustive. Although all participants reported that they knew their contact had an invisible disability, some participants did not answer the question asking them to report the type of disability. Some participants did report the type of disability but did not know specifics. For example, some participants reported the type of disability as “some kind of heart problem,” “issue with lungs,” and “nerve problems.” Given the nature of the data, we were unable to examine the effects of the type of disability on communication in the current study. However, a person with a disability is defined by the ADA as someone who has a history or record of an impairment (visible or invisible) or a person who is perceived by others as having an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. Therefore, being perceived as having a disability is enough to be subjected to the stereotype-based communication of interability communication (Ryan et al., 2005).

2. Although the four dependent measures are well established constructs, a retrospective exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with Promax rotation was conducted per request of an anonymous reviewer of this manuscript to examine whether these dependent measures were distinct concepts. In line with the literature, EFA results indicated a clear four meaningful factor structure (i.e., affective, behavioral and cognitive attitude, and stereotypes; KMO and Bartlett’s Test of Sphericity was significant, χ² (861) = 8071.80, p < .001).

3. The only demographic control variable that was significantly associated with the major variables was the contact’s gender (female = 1 and male = 2), which was a significant predictor of enacted social support (b = −.33, p < .01). This finding indicates that males with an invisible disability tend to receive less sources of social support than females when they make their invisible disability known to others through self-disclosure (Cutrona, 1996; Kunkel & Burleson, 1999).