Evaluation of Persons with a Physical Disability

Abstract

The impact of ethnic group, disability framework, and responsibility for the disability on evaluation of the physically disabled was examined in Israel. Arab and Jewish students were asked to evaluate a disabled person shown on videotape. Before and after seeing the videotape, subjects were given additional information pertaining to the circumstances in which the person became disabled. The results of the three-way analysis of variance indicated that disability per se was not the sole variable that influenced evaluations of the disabled; the variables of the study superimposed on the disability did affect the evaluations of the disabled. Disability framework, that is, civilian versus military disabled, appears to have the strongest single effect on evaluation of disabled persons. Responsibility for the disability influenced the evaluations in certain identifiable contexts. Ethnic group expressed itself as a general variable and its impact could only be assessed in relation to the other variables.

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