Young Adults' Perceptions of Children With Cerebral Palsy.

Objective: To examine factors influencing young adults' perceptions of children with cerebral palsy. Participants and Procedure: A total of 180 college students read vignettes about a healthy child or a child with cerebral palsy with mild or moderate physical impairments. Main Outcome Measure: Perceptions of the child (Ratings of the Child Questionnaire). Results: Young adults held less positive perceptions of children with cerebral palsy compared with a healthy child. Women endorsed more positive perceptions for all children than men. Knowledge about cerebral palsy and wanting to work with children were related to positive perceptions of children with cerebral palsy. Conclusions: Young adults' negative perceptions of children with cerebral palsy suggest the need for interventions to improve their knowledge about this condition. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Wellness Promotion in Persons With Disabilities: Physicians' Personal Behaviors, Attitudes, and Practices.

Objective: To examine physicians' attitudes, personal wellness behaviors, and wellness promotion practices with their patients who were living with a disability. Design and Participants: A 20-item survey was mailed to 1,200 physicians from a national stratified random sample. Responses were received from 417 physicians (34.8% response rate). Results: Physicians who reported engaging in high levels of wellness promotion with their patients with disabilities rated wellness promotion as more important and reported feeling more competent and responsible. Several barriers and incentives to wellness promotion were reported. Conclusions: Physicians' attitudes and perceived competencies may influence their wellness promotion activities with their patients with disabilities. Medical training modules and other methods may increase physicians' wellness promotion activities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Does Volunteering With Children Affect Attitudes Toward Adults With Disabilities? A Prospective Study of Unequal Contact.

Objectives: Determine effects of volunteering with children with disabilities on attitudes toward adults with disabilities; examine predictors of social distance. Setting: Pediatric educational-rehabilitation center. Method: Seventy-one adult volunteers completed measures before and after volunteering for 4 to 10 months with children with physical or hearing impairments. Main outcome variables: Questionnaire measures of social distance, self- and other-focused attitudes, thoughts, and affect toward adults with disabilities. Results: Volunteering decreased social distance and had the greatest impact on comfort and ease, regardless of the group with which participants volunteered. There was little change in thoughts and beliefs about people with disabilities. Social distance was best predicted by an other-focused variable: thoughts about the person with a disability. Conclusions: Working with children with disabilities diminished social distance and improved self-focused aspects of attitudes, thoughts, and feelings. This experience generally did not affect other-focused views, which are important for interaction with peers with disabilities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Attitudes of management undergraduates toward persons with disabilities: A need for change.

Objective: To examine attitudes toward persons with disabilities of management undergraduates who will be the next generation of professionals and managers hiring and working with employees or clients with disabilities. Participants: A convenience sample of 231 volunteer management undergraduates (129 men and 102 women) ranging in age from 19 to 51 years (M?=?22.89, SD?=?4.43) from 7 human resource management and organizational behavior management classes in a small western Canadian university. Main Outcome Measures: L. Gething's (1991) Interaction With Disabled Persons Scale (IDP) along with openended questions and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (D. P. Crowne & D. Marlowe, 1960). Results: This Canadian sample expressed a complex set of positive and negative attitudes toward persons with disabilities. Conclusions: There is a need to sensitize management undergraduates to issues regarding employment of people with disabilities. Recommendations are presented. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The development and psychometric validation of the Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test.

Objectives: Develop and validate the Disability Attitude Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT). Participants: Two hundred twenty-three rehabilitation counseling students. Outcome Measures: DA-IAT, Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale, Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale, Collett-Lester Fear of Death Scale, Internal and External Motivation to Respond Without Prejudice Toward People With Disabilities Scales, Contact With Disabled Persons Scale, and demographics. Results: DA-IAT congruent associations (disability plus negative-nondisabled plus positive) occurred more frequently than incongruent associations (disability plus positive-nondisabled plus negative). DA-IAT had no relationship with the Attitude Toward Disabled Persons Scale, an explicit attitude measure. Demographics did not predict DA-IAT scores. Contact with Disabled Persons Scale was the dominant predictor for the DA-IAT. Conclusions: The DA-IAT has the potential to become a useful measure of implicit group disability attitudes on the basis of experience versus belief. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Attitudes toward persons with disabilities.

Reviews the book, Attitudes toward persons with disabilities by Harold E. Yuker (see record 1988-97173-000). In summer, 1986, Harold E. Yuker, one of the well known pioneers of the study of attitudes toward persons with disabilities, convened some of the best scholars and experts in this field to a conference at Hofstra University. The main purpose of this book, a product of the Hofstra conference, is to provide readers with various perspectives on the different aspects of the study of attitudes toward persons with disabilities. The book includes 19 chapters organized into five parts. In Part One, Beatrice Wright presents the concept of the fundamental negative bias toward persons with physical disabilities and provides an extended analysis of the different aspects of this phenomenon in both research and clinical practice. Part Two contains six expertly written papers on the sources of attitudes. The third part of the book focuses on measurement problems. The fourth part of the book is concerned with attitudes of specific groups. Part five shifts to issues related to attitude change. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Apothegms for Activists--and Other Psychologists.

Comments on a quote by Kenneth E. Clark. In reporting the 1969 annual meeting of APA, Science quoted Clark as saying, "The professional psychologist must be a professional activist [Nelson, 1969, p. 1103]." Beginning with the following statement, the commenting author, William M. Stallings writes, "If psychologists individually--and the profession in general--were to assume a more active posture with respect to social issues, it also would seem appropriate that they assume the complete panoply of the professional activist." This article provides a list of quotes culled with one exception from the literature of applied statistics and mathematics. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Independent living for physically disabled people.

Reviews the book, Independent living for physically disabled people by Nancy M. Crewe, Irving Kenneth Zola, and Associates (1983). As stated by the authors, one of their goals in writing this text is to bring together a substantial portion of the rapidly growing body of independent living (IL) knowledge, some of which is relatively inaccessible. More importantly, the authors state their wish to present this knowledge in a way that will communicate the challenge and promise of the IL movement to their intended audience, whom they identify as professionals and students already in the field and in closely related fields, as well as disabled individuals. Generally speaking, this book succeeds in meeting its authors' stated objectives. A particularly important reason for this success may be the fact that the book presents the reader with a comprehensive view of the IL movement from a variety of vantage points—historical and cultural, urban and rural, domestic and international, disabled and nondisabled—as well as from numerous professional standpoints. Independent Living for Physically Disabled People is a well-organized and clearly written text that satisfactorily articulates the growing visibility of the IL movement. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Diversity beliefs as a mediator to faculty attitudes toward students with disabilities.

A survey of a sample of faculty (N = 201) at a large, public university located in the Southwest was conducted to investigate whether differences in faculty attitudes toward diversity positively mediate faculty attitudes toward persons with disabilities. In addition, the current study examined whether differences in faculty attitudes toward diversity may be viewed as positively mediating the relationship between instructor characteristics and their attitudes toward persons with disabilities. This study concludes that faculty members may not be viewing disability as part of the greater construct of diversity with empirical evidence. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Contextual variations in implicit evaluation.

In the present research, the authors examined contextual variations in automatic attitudes. Using 2 measures of automatic attitudes, the authors demonstrated that evaluative responses differ qualitatively as perceivers focus on different aspects of a target's social group membership (e.g., race or gender). Contextual variations in automatic attitudes were obtained when the manipulation involved overt categorization (Experiments 1-3) as well as more subtle contextual cues, such as category distinctiveness (Experiments 4-5). Furthermore, participants were shown to be unable to predict such contextual influences on automatic attitudes (Experiment 3). Taken together, these experiments support the idea of automatic attitudes being continuous, online constructions that are inherently flexible and contextually appropriate, despite being outside conscious control. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Mentoring students and professionals with disabilities.

Mentoring can have a significant positive impact on the lives of individuals. People with disabilities seeking to locate mentors face a variety of potential challenges and benefits. This article addresses mentoring-related issues faced by professionals with disabilities. The article presents a model of mentoring and discusses the difficulties faced by individuals with disabilities in locating mentors. It describes the negative impact of the lack of available mentors upon the educational and vocational development of people with disabilities. It offers effective strategies aimed at enhancing mentoring relationships with people with disabilities, including macrofocused strategies capable of enhancing the effectiveness of disability-related mentoring programs and microfocused strategies useful in developing quality mentoring relationships. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Review of Vocational evaluation, work adjustment, and independent living for severely disabled people.

Reviews the book, Vocational evaluation, work adjustment, and independent living for severely disabled people by Robert A. Lassiter, Martha Hughes Lassiter, Richard E. Hardy, J. William Underwood, and John G. Cull (1983). This book is composed of 31 short chapters, apparently divided into four separate sections. In just over 400 pages, vocational evaluation, work adjustment, and independent living for severely disabled people are examined. The title of this book leads the reader to assume that vocational evaluation, work adjustment, and independent living will be examined as three equally important but separate and distinct topics. In fact, what is presented is a process, moving from vocational evaluation to work adjustment and finally to independent living. While there is adequate connection between vocational evaluation and work adjustment, and between work adjustment and independent living, there is none between vocational evaluation and independent living. On the whole, this book provides an adequate examination of vocational evaluation, work adjustment, and independent living for the severely disabled. It suffers, however, from those problems that plague so many edited works—lack of continuity, consistency, and central focus. An introductory chapter longer than 2? pages and a concluding chapter by the editors would have gone a long way to provide those aspects that are lacking. While clearly not a text for classroom use, this book will more appropriately be used to examine the "common sense goals that all three areas now possess." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Psychology in the Public Forum: Perspectives on Persons with Disabilities.

Jackman (1983) states that the predominant perspective in America on persons with disabilities is to view them as flawed individuals who need to be rehabilitated in order to be made as normal as possible. Because people with disabilities cannot do some of those things done by people without disabilities, they are seen as incompetent, helpless, unproductive, and dependent on others for care. If individuals with disabilities are to improve their status, it is necessary for them to rely on those who can help them accommodate to their disabilities. An alternative conception is to view individuals with disabilities as members of a minority group who lack power and are denied their civil rights. From this perspective, persons with disabilities face problems stemming from a society that stigmatizes and devalues those who are different. Many psychologists could be contributing to knowledge on and service to people with handicaps from both perspectives, but most view such activities as a narrow area of specialization outside the mainstream. The articles in this forum discuss the relationship among psychological knowledge, issues relating to those with disabilities, and public policy primarily from the civil rights perspective. It is hoped that the civil rights perspective can be added to the dominant rehabilitation viewpoint within psychology, attract a greater following within psychology, and produce a psychology of disability that can speak more forcefully to issues of disability and public policy. The six articles in this forum suggest that issues of disability need not remain narrowly segmented within psychology and nearly invisible to most of the discipline. Through greater attention by a broader segment of psychology and attention to the civil rights as well as the rehabilitation perspective, more enlightened public policies on issues of disability can emerge. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits and its ideological correlates.

"It was predicted that under present social conditions, urban American college students would show substantial individual consistency in the degree to which they manifest rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits (hypothesis 1). Further, on the basis of previous research findings, it was predicted that rigidity of attitudes regarding personal habits would be significantly associated with acceptance of fascist or antidemocratic ideology (hypothesis 2)." The data are interpreted as supporting both hypotheses. 19 references. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Social acceptance and rejection of preschool children with disabilities: A mixed-method analysis.

Eighty children with disabilities enrolled in a nationally distributed set of inclusive preschool programs participated in this study. The average age of the participants was 3.9 years, and 60% were male. The children exhibited a range of disabilities and developmental levels. Using a mixed-method approach, the authors established quantitative criteria for identifying children with disabilities who were socially accepted and socially rejected by their peer group, and qualitative methods revealed themes associated with social participation of each group. Cluster analyses of themes identified 3 clusters associated with social acceptance (e.g., awareness-interest, communication-play, friendship-social skills) and 2 clusters associated with social rejection (e.g., social withdrawal, conflict-aggression). Subsequent cluster analyses of children and matrix analyses illustrated how child social participation was related to superordinate theme clusters and constructs of acceptance and rejection. Socially accepted children tended to have disabilities that were less likely to affect social problem solving and emotional regulation, whereas children who were socially rejected had disabilities that were more likely to affect such skills and developmental capacities. Implications of this research for theory and practice are proposed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The psychological bases of ideology and prejudice: Testing a dual process model.

The issue of personality and prejudice has been largely investigated in terms of authoritarianism and social dominance orientation. However, these seem more appropriately conceptualized as ideological attitudes than as personality dimensions. The authors describe a causal model linking dual dimensions of personality, social world view, ideological attitudes, and intergroup attitudes. Structural equation modeling with data from American and White Afrikaner students supported the model, suggesting that social conformity and belief in a dangerous world influence authoritarian attitudes, whereas toughmindedness and belief in a competitive jungle world influence social dominance attitudes, and these two ideological attitude dimensions influence intergroup attitudes. The model implies that dual motivational and cognitive processes, which may be activated by different kinds of situational and intergroup dynamics, may underlie 2 distinct dimensions of prejudice. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Factor analysis of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale—Form A.

Factor analysis of the attitudes of 133 rehabilitation and agency practitioners and trainees yielded four major factors: Coping-Succumbing, Emotional Need-Emotional Satisfaction, Sensitivity-Self-Consciousness, and Inferred Morality. The findings of this study are compared and contrasted with findings using similar instruments with different populations so as to explore psychometric issues. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

The effects of information on the assessment of attitudes by authoritarians and nonauthoritarians.

"This study was concerned with the effects of differentially relevant information on social judgments of authoritarians and nonauthoritarians. After listening to standard recorded interviews, the content of which was derived from the theoretical clusters of the F scale, Ss made judgments about the respondent's F scale attitudes and his values. It was hypothesized that Ss low in F are better able to use information for making accurate judgments. On the whole, results confirmed the hypothesis, although there was some evidence that Ss low in F, as well as those high in F, tended toward stereotyped thinking." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Some personal and social attitudes of habitual traffic violators.

"The results indicate that the negligent operators do not constitute a homogeneous group with respect to either the personal variables or the attitudes expressed toward the law, the police, or themselves… [they] therefore, fail to support the common belief that drivers who have unfavorable attitudes toward self or society become serious traffic violators and that such violators have developed unfavorable attitudes toward traffic laws, enforcement agencies, or themselves as a result of frequent apprehension for traffic violations… . In conclusion, it appears that the drivers used in this study are not different from other drivers in the characteristics considered, except in the frequency of traffic violations on their records." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)