Explicit and implicit attitudes of occupational therapy workshops' staff towards people with intellectual disabilities

Abstract

AbstractThe aim of this article is to present explicit and implicit attitudes of occupational therapy (OT) staff towards people with intellectual disabilities. The study was conducted on a group of 77 OT employees. To explore the explicit attitude, the Conditional Respect for Persons with Disabilities Questionnaire (Kurtek, Roczniki Psychologiczne, 2018, 4, 327–344) was used, while to estimate the implicit attitude, the Intellectual Disability Attitudes Implicit Association Test was applied (Kurtek, Roczniki Psychologiczne, 2021, 1, 43–64). At the explicit level, OT staff tended to tolerate negative and overrate positive behaviours of people with intellectual disabilities, which indicates a tendency to favour the individuals. However, the opposite devalorizing tendency was observed at the implicit dimension, which indicates aversive ableism. Although the study confirmed the independence of the two dimensions of the personnel's attitude, relationships were observed between the disclosure of negativity towards antagonistic behaviours of the people with intellectual disabilities and a decrease in the level of their implicit devaluation.