School of Psychological Science Attitudes Toward Disability: The Relationship Between Attitudes Toward Disability and Frequency of Interaction with People with Disabilities (PWD)​ Jennifer Kim, Taylor Locke, Emily Reed, Jackie Yates, Nicholas Zike, Mariah Esll, Bridgee Graham, Erika Frandrup, Kathleen Bogart, PhD, Sam Logan, PhD, Chrisna Hospodar Introducon Methods Connued Conclusion The social and medical models of disability are sets of underlying assumpons explaining Parcipants Connued Supporng our hypothesis, the medical and social models parally mediated the people's beliefs about the causes and implicaons of disability. • 7.9% idenfied as Hispanic/Lano & 91.5% did not idenfy as Hispanic/Lano relaonship between contact and atudes towards PWD. • 2.6% idenfied as Black/African American, 1.7% idenfied as American Indian or Alaska • Compared to the social model, the medical model was more strongly associated • The medical model is the predominant model in the United States that is associated Nave, 23.3% idenfied as Asian, 2.2% idenfied as Nave Hawaiian or Pacific Islander, with contact and atudes. with the belief that disability is an undesirable status that needs to be cured (Darling & 76.7% idenfied as White, & 2.1% idenfied as Other • This suggests that more contact with PWD can help decrease medical model beliefs Heckert, 2010). This model focuses on the diagnosis, treatment and curave efforts • Average frequency of contact was about once a month in general, but may be slightly less effecve at promong the social model beliefs. related to disability. • 9.9% idenfied as having a disability Limitaons • The social model is preferred by disability acvists and researchers which focuses on Measures • Large proporon of Caucasian parcipants society’s involvement in disability, such as sgmazaon, discriminaon and the The Assessing Atudes About Ability survey consisted of: • Large proporon of higher socioeconomic status ($40,000 and up) interpersonal barriers that are features of one’s disability. The social model suggests • Atudes Toward Disabled Persons scale (Yuker, Block, & Younng, 1970) • Our survey consisted of a single contact item that society disables individuals and is the cause of impairment (Olkin, 2003). • A single item assessing frequency of contact with PWD • "How oen do you interact with PWD?" Implicaons Allport’s contact hypothesis states that increased contact with people with disabilies • The Darling (2013) social and medical model scales Average frequency of contact with PWD was about once a month (PWD) will reduce prejudice through relaonship building and social connecon (Allport, • 19% of Americans have a disability (Brault, 2012) 1954). Analysis Procedures • 10% of undergrads have a disability (U.S. Census Bureau, 2012) A mediaon and path analysis was conducted using bootstrapping • Only 2% of psychology faculty have a disability (Andrews & Lund, 2015) • Pegrew’s Intergroup Contact Theory, similar to Allport’s contact hypothesis, argues v Implicaons of this study may suggest that instuons need to accommodate to more PWD that essenal condions must be met in order to reduce feelings of prejudice. These and provide educaon about the subject. Underrepresentaon of PWD in instuons, such condions include learning about the outgroup, changing behavior, generang as universies, are caused by instuonal and social barriers, which essenally creates affecve es, and in-group reappraisal (Pegrew, 1998). Results insufficient opportunies for people to interact with PWD. A paral mediaon was found. There were significant indirect effects for both medical Based on these theories, increased interacon with PWD should result in more favorable model, b = -.01, 95% CI [-.0145, -.0066], and social model, b = -.004, 95% CI [-.0080, -.0017]. Future Studies atudes about PWD. We further propose that contact may serve to alter the medical and Future studies might focus on asking more quesons that assess how certain types of social models of disability orientaon, which in turn may affect atudes. This is the first contact or interacons with PWD change atudes towards disability. This could serve as an large-scale study that examines how the models of disability influence the relaonship alternave to the single item assessing frequency of contact with PWD. between contact and atudes toward PWD. • Allport's contact hypothesis suggests asking quesons regarding relaonship building and social connecon (Allport, 1954). It was hypothesized that parcipants with more frequent interacons with PWD would have • Pegrew's Intergroup Contact Theory suggests asking quesons that involve creang more favorable atudes towards PWD. This would be mediated by models of disability. emoonal es with PWD, along with how increased educaon about the disability community might influence atude change (Pegrew, 1998).

Methods Parcipants The Assessing Atudes About Ability survey was distributed over five secons of a required health class, majority of the parcipants were in their first year (n=1506). Figure 1. Model tesng meditaonal role of medical and social model of disability in the relaonship between contact with disability and atudes toward people with disabilies. The coefficient in parentheses is the total effect and the adjacent number is the direct effect. Values are b coefficients. Higher ATDP scores denote more negave atudes, • Ages ranged from 17-45 (M=18.67, SD=1.812) while higher scores on all other measures denote greater amounts of each construct. † p < .1, ** p < .01, *** p < .001 • 55% idenfied as male & 44.8% idenfied as female