Interpersonal behavior moderates "kindness norm" effects on cognitive and affective reactions to physical disability.

Abstract

Subjects viewed a videotaped interview of a confederate who appeared to be either with or without a physical disability, and who enacted either depressed or socially appropriate roles. Subjects were also told either they could choose to meet the target, they had to meet the target immediately following the tape, or nothing in regards to meeting the target. Results indicated that subjects reported higher levels of negative mood when they expected to meet the target, and depressed targets elicited higher rates of negative cognitions regardless of the physical appearance of the target. Furthermore, consistent with predictions, confederates appearing disabled and depicting socially appropriate behavior elic- ited significantly higher rates of positive cognitions from subjects. Findings are integrated with past research of reactions to depression and disability. The term kindness norm (Kleck, 1968) has been used to describe the apparent positive biases people display in their interactions with and evaluations of persons who are physically stigmatized despite experiencing higher levels of physiolog- ical anxiety and inhibited nonverbal behavior during the interaction (Hastorf, Northcraft, & Picciotto, 1979; Kleck, 1968; Kleck, Ono, & Hastorf, 1966). Although these studies have yielded rather consistent findings, certain criticisms of this work have yet to be thoroughly considered and researched. These short- term, contrived laboratory studies make the physical disability of the confederate artificially salient to subjects, and the possible mitigating effects of other variables such as interpersonal strategies utilized by many persons with disability in real- life situations are obfuscated (Fine & Asch, 1988). Wright (1988) argues these experiments ignore the possibility that the overt positive responses of subjects may reflect genuine surprise in reaction to the nonstereotypic behavior of a person with disability. Instead, these studies have been biased in the extent that they are framed to interpret positive reactions of subjects as evidence of prejudicial, ingenuine attitudes.