Rehumanization as Intervention for Disgust-Based Prejudice

Rehumanization as an Intervention for Disgust-Based Prejudice: The Case of Ableism Background ● Ableism is a pervasive form of prejudice that has been overlooked by social psychologists ● Disgust is involved in some forms of prejudice, and may be especially relevant to ableism 1 ● Disgust evolved as a pathogen-avoidance mechanism ○ Disgust targets cues to pathogen presence, motivates avoidance 2 ○ Non-conforming bodies may be mistaken as pathogen cues ● Powerful groups may use disgust to perpetuate privilege 3 ○ Disgust polices the socially-constructed human animal boundary ○ Dehumanizing a marginalized group renders members disgusting ○ Dehumanizing rhetoric often accompanies discrimination ● Recent studies show people with high disgust sensitivity have 4 more negative views of marginalized groups Disgust and Ableism ● On the DA, unexpectedly participants did not reveal ableism. Scores were significantly lower than the midpoint of the scale, t(146) = -3.64, p < 0.001, indicating positive attitudes ● On the ICD, participants showed significantly less comfort with contact with PWD than the control identities. There was a significant difference between the groups, F(7) = 62.9, p < 0.001 Objectives ● Are there more negative attitudes toward PWD than toward other groups? ● Is there a relationship between disgust sensitivity and disability prejudice? ● Can a humanizing intervention decrease prejudice? Methods Participants ● M-TURK workers (N = 150; 57 female, 93 male) Measures ● Disgust Scale-Revised (DS-R) (Haidt, McCauley, & Rozin, 1994) ○ 27-item likert scale measuring disgust sensitivity ○ e.g. “A friend offers you a piece of chocolate shaped like dogdoo” ● Disability Attitudes (DA) (Findler, Vilchinsky, & Werner, 2007; Yuker & Hurley, 1987) ○ 34- item scale measuring participant’s explicit attitudes towards PWD ○ e.g. “People with disabilities are capable members of the workforce” ● Indirect-Contact Disgust (ICD) (Rozin, Markwith, & McCauley, 1994) ○ 5 scenarios with 9 sub-questions pertaining to contact with PWD ○ e.g. “How would you feel about wearing the sweater after being worn by a person with an intellectual disability?” Procedure Pre-assessment DS-R + DA + ICD Intervention Experimental group (n = 79) ● Paralympic video Control (n = 71) ● Control video Discussion Results Post-assessment DA + ICD ● Ableism more prevalent than prejudice toward other identities (i.e. healthy, broken arm, strep, murder) ○ ICD showed discomfort with contact with PWD more than other identities ○ Not present in DA, however DA and ICD correlated ● Disgust at socialized concept of disability more than physical presence of one ○ ICD nuanced, discomfort with PWD not as great as murderer or strep, but greater than controls ○ Comfort with person with temporary disabilities but not permanent ● Ableism based in disgust ○ High in disgust sensitivity = high in ableism ○ DS-R correlated with DA, and DA and ICD correlated ○ ICD based in disgust (avoidance) and showed ableism ● No effect of intervention on ableism ○ Maybe intervention ineffective ■ due to salience of intervention ■ due to MTURK workers ○ Connection to disgust and vicarious contact in previous research suggest not due to inefficacy of humanization Limitations ● Scores on the DA and the ICD were correlated, r = -0.297, p < 0.001 ● Participants high in disgust sensitivity showed more ableism on the DA. DS-R scores correlated with the DA, r = 0.371, p < 0.001 ● Participants high in disgust sensitivity showed more comfort toward PWD on the ICD, r = 0.210, p = 0.012 ● Efficacy of DA measure ○ Not compared to other groups, response bias ● Salience of intervention video ○ Too short, not enough humanizing contact ● Use of MTURK workers not reliable ○ Inconsistent, unmotivated Future Directions ● Add manipulation checks to confirm efficacy of intervention ● Increase the salience of intervention to adequately test use of humanization ○ Longer, more emotional video of PWD ○ Interactive training ● Increase motivation of participants to improve reliability References Humanizing Intervention ● Participants in the experimental group did not show significantly less ableism than the control group on the DA measure, F(1) = 0.563, p = 0.454 ● Participants in the experimental group did not show significantly less ableism than the control group on the ICD measure, F(1) = 0.285, p = 0.594 1 Tyber, J. M., Lieberman, D., Kurzban, R., & DeScioli, P. (2013). Disgust: Evolved function and structure. Psychological Review, 120(1), 65-84. 2 Rozin, P., & Fallon, A. E. (1987). A perspective on disgust. Psychological Review, 94(1), 23-41. 3 Schaller, M. & Park, J. H. (2011) The behavioral immune system (and why it works. Current Directions in Psychological Science 20(2), 99-103. Doi: 10.1177/0963721411402596. 4 Inbar, Y., Pizarro, D. A., Knobe, J., & Bloom, P. (2009). Disgust sensitivity predicts intuitive disapproval of gays. Emotion 9(3), 435-439. doi: 10.1037/a0015960. Funding Source: Tom Armstrong’s PEEP Lab