Explicit and implicit attitudes towards people with intellectual disabilities: The role of contact and participant demographics

Abstract

BACKGROUND: Intellectual disability research has concentrated on self-reported explicit attitudes with little focus on implicit attitudes. Such attitudes are evaluations which occur with or without conscious awareness, respectively. This investigation examined participants' (N = 234) attitudes towards individuals with intellectual disabilities with reference to participants' gender, age, level of education, frequency of contact and closeness. METHOD: UK adults completed explicit (ATTID) and implicit attitude (ST-IAT) measures, and provided demographics via an online survey. RESULTS: Participant demographics predicted explicit attitudes-with differing cognitive, affective and behavioural associations. Contact frequency was most significant. Implicit attitudes were not predicted, evidencing implicit-explicit attitude differences. CONCLUSIONS: The results encourage more implicit-explicit attitude relationship research regarding disability. The associations between demographics, contact and implicit attitudes should be explored further. Research should question whether implicit attitudes reflect participants' true beliefs-denoting less importance to demographics-or whether they reflect wider societal values rather than individuals' attitudes.