Born that way or became that way: Stigma toward congenital versus acquired disability

Abstract

Stigma may differ depending on the timing of group-membership entry, whether a person was “born that way” or “became that way.” Disability, a highly understudied minority group, varies on this domain. Three studies demonstrated that congenital disability is more stigmatized than acquired disability and essentialism and blame moderate and mediate this effect. Congenital disability was more stigmatized than the acquired version of the same disability (Studies 1–2). People with congenital disability were more essentialized, but less blamed than people with acquired disability (Study 2). Manipulating onset and essentialism revealed that when disability was acquired, low essentialism predicted greater stigma through blame (Study 3). However, when disability was congenital, essentialism did not affect stigma through blame. For stigmatized groups unlikely to be blamed for their group membership, reducing essentialism could ameliorate stigma, but for groups that might be blamed for their group membership, increasing essentialism may be a tool to reduce stigma by reducing blame.

Identity integration in people with acquired disabilities: A qualitative study

“…Syed and McLean (2016) offered person‐society integration as the fourth type of identity integration, one focused on the ways in which one's identity is embraced or problematized by one's social contexts. Given the stigma attached to disability (Bogart et al, 2019), it is not surprising that many participants spoke about the ways in which they felt socially fragmented. For some participants there were discrete moments when this experience of being shunned from a social group was made explicit.…”

“…It is worth briefly noting that scholarship on disability tends to distinguish between people with congenital versus acquired disabilities. While these groups are united by a shared disability identity in the face of societal ableism, they experience differing degrees of stigma and different developmental processes (e.g., Bogart, Rosa, & Slepian, 2019). We have chosen to focus on people who acquired physical disabilities in adulthood because they have experienced a change in their body that poses an important challenge for identity development (Michell et al, under review).…”

Ableism Special Issue Introduction

“…Arguably, the reason that such attitudes persist is that most nondisabled people have little or no contact with disabled people (that they know of), and are exposed to culture and media that underrepresents or negatively represents disability, leading to awkward encounters that encourage a reliance on stereotypes (for a more detailed discussion, see Livneh, , , who cataloged various sources of negative attitudes towards disability). Disability presents a unique avenue through which to examine prejudice, because it is one of few minority groups in which one can be “born that way” or “become that way.” Recent experimental work found greater ableism toward congenital disability than acquired disability (Bogart et al., ). Congenital disability was more essentialized, but less blamed than acquired disability.…”

“…Disability intersects all other social identities (e.g., gender, race, sexual orientation), meaning that social identities of disabled people are often multifaceted, and also that disabled people may experience multiple forms of discrimination. Disability is unique as one of the only minority groups one could either be born into or could join at any time (Bogart, Rosa, & Slepian, ). Unlike racial and ethnic identities, people with disabilities often have solo status (Lord & Saenz, ), meaning they may be the only member of their family or community who shares that identity, challenging the formation of ingroup identity.…”

Disadvantaged Individuals: Stigma as a Source of Entrepreneurial Motivation to Thrive

“…In this paper, we synonymy use stigmatized individuals as disadvantaged ones because the disadvantage of an individual makes them vulnerable to stigma. For instance, unemployment (Dougherty, Rick, & Moore, 2017;Staiger et al, 2018), health-related issues and psychological disorder (Chan, Lee, & Mak, 2018;Crowe, Averett, & Glass, 2016;Stangl et al, 2019), disability (Bogart, Rosa, & Slepian, 2019), and immigration (Nevin et al, 2018;Von Lersner, 2019). In addition to this, women were considered disadvantaged based on their gender that restricts them to access entrepreneurial resources (Fischer, Reuber, & Dyke, 1993;Marlow & Patton, 2005).…”