A social psychological perspective of disability prejudice

The purpose of this chapter was to integrate social psychological theories of prejudice with considerations of disability laws to shed light on when people with disabilities will experience prejudice and the forms that disability prejudice may take. Drawing on Chapter 7 by M. Selmi (this volume) and Chapter 3 by P. Blanck (this volume), I examined the prejudices that people with disabilities may experience as a result of the degree and type of their disability. First, I considered models of person perception and suggested that the degree and type of disability may influence whether people with disabilities experience prejudice in the first place. Second, I examined models of intergroup prejudice and suggested that the degree and type of disability may result in predictable types of prejudice. Implications for future research are discussed throughout.