Cultural Uniformity in Reaction to Physical Disabilities

An Investigation of Children's Attitudes Towards Physically Disabled Peers

“…These can also be thought of as "to be" traits. They cite many authors (Dion and Berschield, 1974;Asher, 1975;and Richardson et al, 1961) as having determined that children demonstrate negative attitudes towards others exhibiting "to be" traits which do not conform to their internal-. ized status-value gradients.…”

“No fat friend of mine”: Young children's responses to overweight and disability

“…Research into children's obesity stereotyping has a long history and originated in studies of their perception of disability. Asking 10-to11-year-old children, "Which boy (girl) do you like best" from six drawings of children with different physical disabilities, no disability, or obesity, showed the obese child was generally the last to be selected (Richardson, Goodman, Hastorf, & Dornbusch, 1961). In a replication some 40 years later, pre-teen children were even less likely to choose the obese child drawing as being liked over any of the others (Latner & Stunkard, 2003).…”

Weight bias: Investigating the impact of an empathy-evoking intervention in reducing mental health professionals' anti-fat attitudes

“…Greater weight bias has been found among Caucasians (versus ethnic minorities) and younger (versus older) adults (Sabin et al, 2012;Puhl, Andreyeva & Brownell, 2008;Schwartz, Vartanian, Nosek & Brownell, 2006). Interestingly, these findings seem to have held over the years with both Staffieri (1967) and Richardson, Goodman, Hastorf and Dornbusch (1961) reporting weightbased stereotypes and prejudice being a social problem over 50 years ago. Antipathy toward outgroups is common across cultures, time, languages and national boundaries, and it appears that no ethnic group, age or gender has a monopoly on weight bias (Crandall, D'Anello, Sakalli, Lazarus, Wieczorkowska Nejtardt & Feather, 2001).…”

“…Thus, even young children were able to mirror what society says about obesity and body shape. A landmark study by Richardson et al (1961) required the children participants to rank (in order of who they would be most likely to befriend) pictures of six children with various physical characteristics and disabilities (crutches, wheelchair, amputations, or facial disfigurements). Most participants were shown to rank the picture of the obese child last and when this study was performed again by Latner and Stunkard (2003), not only did the children again display the strongest bias toward the obese child, but they expressed even more prejudice than their counterparts had 40 years earlier.…”

“…Weight bias studies date to the 1960's (Richardson, Goodman, Hastorf & Dornbusch, 1961) and so can be considered a relatively 'young' area of research. With less than 60 years of weight bias investigation, there are bound to be gaps in the literature needing consideration, with scope for many novel and innovative research studies.…”