Social acceptance by their peers of children with mental retardation

Students' willingness to befriend a child with mental retardation was investigated using written vignettes of students said to be enrolling in the subjects' school. In the control condition, all stories described the incoming students as non-labeled peers. In the experimental condition, half of the descriptions of new classmates included the addition of the label mentally retarded. Subjects were asked to make a behavioral commitment to befriend an incoming student assuming that the child would be joining their class. Chi-squared analysis indicated that the addition of the label to a description of a child significantly reduced the frequency of that child's being selected by subjects, particularly boys. The data suggested that the label may inhibit students' willingness to accept labeled peers socially.