Impacts of Exclusion on the Disabled Population

Abstract

Although explicit prejudice has declined in the modern era, implicit prejudice has only increased. Past research indicates that implicit prejudice leads to an increase in social exclusion, which in turn leads to lower mental well-beings. As disability rates have been increasing worldwide, it is important to explore potential issues experienced by those disabled individuals. To what extent does people with physical disabilities, those more vulnerable to consequences of implicit prejudice, perceive increased social exclusion? How much does the impact on mental well-being, or more specifically personal optimism and self-efficacy, brought by social exclusion on the disabled group compare with people without disabilities? Participants will be surveyed on a daily basis about their perceived social exclusion and their personal optimism/self-efficacy. Results will then be analyzed and graphed to 1) compare levels of reported perceived social exclusion between the disabled and non-disabled group, 2) compare the strength of correlation between perceived social exclusion and self-efficacy optimism between the disabled and non-disabled group, and 3) compare the strength of correlation between perceived social exclusion and personal optimism between the disabled and non-disabled group. Results are expected to demonstrate a significant higher amount of perceived exclusion for the disabled group, a stronger negative correlation between perceived social exclusion and self-efficacy optimism as well as between perceived social exclusion and personal optimism for the disabled group. Such findings indicate that the disabled population generally perceives more social exclusion, and such perceived exclusions contribute to greater levels of decreased mental well beings for disabled individuals in the optimism aspect.