Understanding ableism and negative reactions to disability

Why do nondisabled people tend to hold negative attitudes toward disability and disabled persons? Ableism—prejudice and discrimination aimed at disabled people, often with a patronizing desire to “cure” their disability and make them “normal”—is one explanation. Ableism, either subtly or directly, portrays individuals who are being defined by their disabilities as inherently inferior to nondisabled people.

Factors that characterize and contribute to ableism include:

• Anxiety in unstructured social encounters, where nondisabled behave awkwardly around disabled people.
• Social and cultural conditioning, as well as norms (e.g., “people who are familiar, similar to me are  good”).
• Familiar responses toward minorities, so that disabled people are marginalized like other groups due to their race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation and so on.
• Fear of death thoughts occur when nondisabled people encounter people with mobility issues, physical function loss, or missing body parts (e.g., an amputation).
• Gender and personality factors—women and people with higher educational levels are more positive towards disability than men or individuals with less education.
• Hierarchical attitudes toward disability, where, quite simply but erroneously, some disabilities (e.g., physical ones) are viewed as more acceptable than others (e.g., mental or intellectual disabilities).
• Incorrect and offensive moral beliefs about disability, while outdated, still occur, so that a disability implies punishment for sins or judgment on an individual or family.
• Various other disability-related factors, including severity, visibility, perceived contagiousness, and predictability (e.g., temporary disabilities are more favorable than permanent ones).

Some nondisabled people have conflicted attitudes, where they amplify their responses towards disabled people (e.g., saying nice things but talking too quickly and loudly) while also displaying discomfort (e.g., backing away rather than leaning in). And nondisabled people may hold both negative (e.g., disgust) and positive (e.g., empathy) reactions towards disability, which fluctuate but are noticed by the disabled person. 

Nondisabled people may express explicitly favorable beliefs and feelings regarding disability while still harboring automatic, nonconscious, and decidedly negative (implicit) attitudes. They remain unaware that their implicit attitudes affect their behavior toward disabled persons, overriding any positivity tied to their explicit attitudes.

Look back over the list of factors that characterize and contribute to ableism: Have you relied on one or more of these reasons for how you think about disability and disabled people? Which one(s) do you think you use or perhaps used in the past? Why did you do so? Can you point to any experience(s) or sources (e.g., television, advertising) that may have led you to associate disability with negative feelings or thoughts?

Ableism is common and, for most of us, unavoidable unless we work to change how we think, feel and act towards people with disabilities. Write down a list of reasons that you or others might engage in ableist thinking. Once you do, reflect for a moment: How can you go about changing how you think the next time you encounter a disabled person or something that reminds you of disability?

Psychologists distinguish between fast and slow thinking. When we are in a fast-thinking mode, we rely on shortcuts, including stereotypes, to make sense of our experience. These biases save time and mental energy—we can think quickly and easily—but we risk drawing false conclusions about people and acting in discriminatory ways.

Slower, more careful cognition requires us to engage in critical thinking in order to revisit and to perhaps revise our earlier conclusions. By slowing down and questioning our assumptions or even conclusions about disability, we may be able to reduce the likelihood that we will engage in ableist thinking.

Take a few minutes and reflect on the reason or reasons you may have engaged in ableist thinking in the past. How can you try to avoid doing so in the future? What (slower) alternative views or beliefs can you identify now to counter previous (faster) conclusions about disability?

How will you remind yourself to think more carefully and slowly the next time you encounter something or someone who makes you think about how you feel about disability?

Dana S. Dunn, PhD, is professor and chair of psychology and director of academic assessment at Moravian University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. He earned his PhD in experimental social psychology from the University of Virginia and his BA in psychology from Carnegie Mellon University. Dunn writes about the social psychology of disability and the teaching of psychology. He is the author or editor of 35 books and over 200 articles, chapters and book reviews. Dunn is currently editor-in-chief of the Oxford Bibliographies (OB): Psychology and editor of the journal Scholarship of Teaching and Learning in Psychology. His recent books include Positive Psychology: Established and Emerging Issues (Taylor and Francis, 2017), and Understanding the Experience of Disability: Perspectives from Social and Rehabilitation Psychology (Oxford, 2019). In 2022, Dunn receives the Roger G. Barker Distinguished Research Contribution Award, American Psychological Association Div. 22 (Rehabilitation Psychology).