Gender and Attitudes Toward People Using Wheelchairs: A Multidimensional Perspective
- 1 March 2010
- journal article
- Published by SAGE Publications in Rehabilitation Counseling Bulletin
- Vol. 53 (3), 163-174
- https://doi.org/10.1177/0034355209361207
Abstract
This study aims to investigate the effect of observer’s gender and target’s gender on attitudes toward people who use wheelchairs due to a physical disability. Four hundred four Jewish Israeli students without disabilities completed the Multidimensional Attitudes Scale Toward Persons With Disabilities (MAS). Initially, confirmatory factor analysis was used to revalidate the MAS. Five factors of attitudes were confirmed: distancing behaviors, positive cognitions, negative emotions, interpersonal stress, and calm. Findings showed that an encounter with a person using a wheelchair raised more positive cognitions and less distancing behaviors, but also evoked more negative emotions, than an encounter with a person without a disability. In the case of an encounter with a person without a disability, men contributed to greater interpersonal stress among women, whereas women contributed to greater interpersonal stress among men. The multidimensional approach revealed that the effect of gender was mostly salient with regard to interpersonal stress.Keywords
This publication has 60 references indexed in Scilit:
- HandicapismPublished by Springer Science and Business Media LLC ,2013
- The Advantages of an Inclusive Definition of AttitudeSocial Cognition, 2007
- Knowledge and attitudes of high school pupils towards peers’ attention deficit and learning disabilitiesPatient Education and Counseling, 2001
- Knowledge and attitudes of high school teachers towards pupils suffering from chronic diseasesPatient Education and Counseling, 2001
- Attitude and knowledge of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and learning disability among high school teachersPatient Education and Counseling, 2000
- Measurement of attitudes towards persons with disabilitiesDisability and Rehabilitation, 2000
- Lessons from social psychology on discrediting psychiatric stigma.American Psychologist, 1999
- The Rehabilitation Situations Inventory: Staff perception of difficult behabioral situations in rehabilitationArchives of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, 1992
- Utility of confirmatory factor analysis in test validation research.Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 1987
- The Effectiveness of Strategies for Increasing Social Interaction with a Physically Disabled Person1Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 1984