This investigation is a first empirical attempt, using an intergroup perspective, to
socially evaluate patronizing speech in encounters involving people with and without
disabilities. Respondents read a vignette involving a person with a disability being
either patronized or not being patronized and then made attributions and evaluations
about the conversational interactants. As predicted, results revealed that recipients
and third party interactants of patronizing speech were rated as feeling less
supported and less comfortable than when involved in a nonpatronizing encounter. In
addition, the patronizer was rated as more incompetent, insensitive, and unsocial in
the former than in the latter condition. These and many other findings were
interpreted within a framework that included social identity, intergroup contact, and
communication accommodation theories.
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