Consequences of Confronting Patronizing Help for People with Disabilities: Do Target Gender and Disability Type Matter?

Individuals with a disability were perceived as less warm after confronting patronizing help. However, there were some differences depending on whether the individual was blind or a wheelchair user.

• Individuals with a disability (whether they were blind or used a wheelchair) were perceived as less warm after versus before confronting patronizing help. However, blind individuals were perceived as less warm after the confrontation than those using a wheelchair. 
• Participants deemed condescending behavior from a nondisabled pedestrian as more appropriate for the individuals who were blind than for those who used a wheelchair. 
• For both studies, gender was not found to have an impact on the perceived warmth of individuals with a disability, neither before nor after confronting patronizing help.  
• There was no penalization on the perceived competence of individuals with a disability after confronting patronizing help. 

Study 1

Participants were presented with background information about a 22-year-old blind man or woman (called Matt or Mary), who was portrayed as a competent working adult and a confident cane traveler. 

In an initial assessment, participants had to indicate their perceptions of this individual with respect to both warmth and competence. Then, they were asked to read a hypothetical scenario where the blind individual asked for directions from a sighted person, who answered in a patronizing way and was then confronted by the blind individual. After reading the situation, participants were once again asked to indicate their perceptions of the blind person, and they also had to indicate whether the sighted person’s behavior was appropriate. 

For study 1, the authors recruited 169 undergraduate students from a university located in the Midwestern United States, who participated in exchange for course credit. From this initial pool, 32 participants were excluded because they failed an attention check to correctly identify that Matt or Mary were blind, and what their request was. The final sample included 137 participants (88 female, 48 male, 1 other) between the ages of 18 and 43 years. 

Study 2

As in study 1, participants were first presented with background information on a man or woman (called Matt or Mary) with a visible disability, who was portrayed as blind or using a wheelchair, and they were asked to evaluate the disabled individual in terms of warmth and competence. 

Next, they were given a hypothetical scenario to read, where the individual with a disability was waiting to cross the street and received completely unsolicited, patronizing help from a nondisabled pedestrian. Participants were then required to indicate the perceived warmth and competence of the disabled target, and to what extent they considered the nondisabled pedestrian’s behavior as appropriate. 

For study 2, the research team recruited 455 U.S. residents from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, who were paid $1.00 for participating in the 10-minute study. From the initial pool, 87 participants failed to identify Matt or Mary’s disability and why they were waiting to cross the street.