The association between contact and intellectual disability literacy, causal attributions and stigma

Contact is seen as a key route to tackling stigma and discrimination. Contact theory states that the quality and type of contact, as well as circumstance of the contact experience, influence the effect of contact on prejudice. The majority of research in intellectual disabilities though has focused on contact as present or absent only.

A total of 1264 adult members of the UK general population completed measures of symptom recognition, social distance (as measure of external stigma) and causal beliefs in response to a diagnostically unlabelled vignette, depicting someone with intellectual disabilities.

A nuanced contact variable, including frequency of contact and closeness and nature of the contact relationship, explained more of the variance in social distance, compared to the binary variable (contact as present or absent). Only the closeness of the relationship was individually predictive though, and the models explained only relatively small amounts of the variance. Structural equation modelling of contact, recognition, social distance and causal beliefs demonstrated that the model including the nuanced variable was an adequate fit for the data.

Future research aimed at increasing our understanding of intellectual disability stigma should avoid assessing contact as a binary variable only, but consider other factors, particularly the closeness of contact relationships. Anti-stigma interventions may benefit from focussing on causal attributions as a method of reducing stigma.