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Psychology Trainee Attitudes Toward People with Disabilities

Fields, Danelle

Abstract Details

2013, Doctor of Philosophy, University of Akron, Counseling Psychology.
Attitudes toward people with disabilities are an area important to multicultural competencies. However training in professional psychology does not often include disability as part of multiculturalism. This may be because research has not moved beyond only identifying the need to improve research and practice of disability attitudes. Multiple disability attitude measures have been developed over the past several decades, but many are not developed on theory or are not useful for identifying specific component areas (affect, behavior, or cognition) to improve attitudes. Therefore, a better understanding of current attitudes toward people with disabilities by counseling and clinical psychology trainees was needed to identify a baseline to further connect disability studies to attitude literature. The study used the Multicomponent Model for Intergroup Attitudes (Esses, et al., 1993) to identify an overall attitude measure and components which inform the initial development of the attitude. Participants identified positive attitudes toward people with disabilities as compared to an able-bodied client. Using a stepwise regression analysis, affect and behavior components predicted the overall attitudes toward the client with a disability, but stereotypes predicted attitudes toward the able-bodied client. The results of the Attitudes Toward Disabled Persons Scale (ATDPS) scores showed highly positive attitudes as compared to the overall attitude measure of the multicomponent model which showed slightly favorable to fairly favorable attitudes. The study also provided content based information that strays from the overly positive ratings of the participants.
John Queener, Dr. (Advisor)
Kuldhir Bhati, Dr. (Committee Member)
Suzette Speight, Dr. (Committee Member)
Francis Broadway, Dr. (Committee Member)
145 p.

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Fields, D. (2013). Psychology Trainee Attitudes Toward People with Disabilities [Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1367232111

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Fields, Danelle. Psychology Trainee Attitudes Toward People with Disabilities. 2013. University of Akron, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1367232111.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Fields, Danelle. "Psychology Trainee Attitudes Toward People with Disabilities." Doctoral dissertation, University of Akron, 2013. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=akron1367232111

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)