The Stigmatization of Concealable and Apparent Intellectual Disabilities

The purpose of this study was to investigate the presence of stigma when responding to people with apparent, visible, intellectual disabilities as compared to individuals with concealable, invisible, intellectual disabilities. Additionally, we aimed to discover if people with higher psychological flexibility would show less bias or stigma towards individuals with unconcealable intellectual disabilities. This study presented 63 participants with four self-report surveys: the Attitudes Towards Disabled Persons survey (ATDP), the Multidimensional Psychological Flexibility Inventory (MPFI), Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale (MCSD), and a demographic survey. Vignettes were added to the self-report survey to give participants further exposure to individuals with disabilities. We also asked participants to complete the Implicit Relational Assessment Procedure (IRAP), which measures the accuracy and responding time of the association between images and target words. Generally, on the IRAP participants had an easier time saying that every individual was good and a harder time saying that any individual was bad. We found statistical significance between the ATDP and the Apparent- Positive Trial Type of the IRAP; Flexibility and Inflexibility; and Trial Types 1 and 2