Available online 12 May 2023, 101482

Author links open overlay panelAbstractBackground

People who work with disabled people or whose work is about disability – disability professionals – often have direct power over disabled people and can impact their lives immensely; they also have a role in creating and institutionalizing knowledge about disability.

Objective

The aim of this study was to examine the explicit (conscious) and implicit (unconscious) disability attitudes of disability professionals.

Methods

Between October 2021 and February 2023, disability professionals (n = 417) completed the Symbolic Ableism Scale (SAS) and the Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test (DA-IAT). We had the following research questions: (1.) What are disability professionals’ explicit attitudes towards disability?; (2.) What are disability professionals’ implicit attitudes towards disability?; (3.) What is the relationship between disability professionals’ explicit and implicit disability attitudes?; and (4.) What sociodemographic factors correlate with disability professionals’ explicit and implicit disability attitudes? We examined these questions using descriptive statistics, t-tests, a two-dimensional model of prejudice, and linear regression models.

Results

In our sample, 77.24% of disability professionals preferred nondisabled people explicitly and 82.03% implicitly. Most commonly, disability professionals were symbolic ableists (37.8%). Race, political orientation, and job type correlated with disability professionals’ explicit attitudes, while disability, gender, and job type correlated with their implicit attitudes.

Conclusions

Ableism cannot be eradicated until disability professionals look inward and rid themselves of negative attitudes; until that occurs, disability professionals will continue to do a disservice to the very people they have dedicated their careers to – disabled people.

Section snippetsFunding

None.

Participants

A total of 417 disability professionals volunteered for this study (Table 1). The most common age range was 41-48 years old (24.9%). Most disability professionals were nondisabled (76.8%), women (79.5%), and White (83.8%). The most common level of education was bachelor’s degree (45.9%). Political orientation was measured on a sliding scale from very liberal (0) to very conservative (100); the mean political orientation was 33.8 (SD = 23.8), which is approximately moderately liberal. Most

Explicit Disability Attitudes

Disability professionals’ explicit attitudes (n = 413) ranged from 0 (no preference) to 1.00 (strongly prefer nondisabled people), with a mean of 0.32 (moderately prefer nondisabled people; SD = 0.11). A one-way t-test revealed this score was significantly different than a mean score of 0 (no preference), t (412) = 61.47, p < 0.001, indicating an explicit preference for nondisabled people among disability professionals. In our sample, 22.76% of disability professionals (n = 94) had no explicit

Discussion

The attitudes of disability professionals can impact disabled people immensely. For this reason, the aim of this study was to examine the disability attitudes of disability professionals. In doing so, we found most disability professionals had negative explicit and implicit attitudes towards disability. In fact, 46% of disability professionals strongly preferred nondisabled people implicitly. While implicit disability bias is common in the general public, to which disability professionals are

Conclusion

Disability professionals’ bias against disabled people is problematic not only for those disabled people they directly interact with, but because their power in creating and sharing information about disability can also help serve to reinforce ableism in society at large. When we examined the disability attitudes of disability professionals, we found high levels of both explicit and implicit attitudes, with most professionals scoring as symbolic ableists. The negative disability attitudes of

Conflicts of interest

The author has no conflicts of interest.

Acknowledgements

Thank you to Mary Kay Rizzolo for reviewing this manuscript and providing feedback.

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