Examining how communicative disabilities impact perceptions of mental sophistication and trait impressions
- UNCG Author/Contributor (non-UNCG co-authors, if there are any, appear on document)
- Jonathan T. Ojeda (Creator)
- Institution
- The University of North Carolina at Greensboro (UNCG )
- Web Site: http://library.uncg.edu/
- Advisor
- Brittany Cassidy
Abstract: The presence of disabilities has an important impact on impressions. When people have disabilities that impact their ability to communicate, they are perceived as less competent than people without disabilities. An important yet rarely explored aspect of the effect of disability on perceived competence is that people low in it might be attributed less mental sophistication. However, no perception work has examined this relation. Thus, an open question regards how communicative disabilities impact perceptions of mental sophistication. Across three experiments I tested whether perceptions of mental sophistication are negatively impacted by communicative disabilities. In Experiment 1, perceptions of mental sophistication and competency were lower for groups with versus without communicative disabilities. In Experiment 2, speakers with Wernicke’s aphasia were attributed lower mental agency relative to speakers with Broca’s aphasia. Experiment 3 tested whether overcoming large amounts of hardship impacted perceptions of mental sophistication and beliefs in speakers' ability to rehabilitate. Speakers' mental agency was more negatively related to rehabilitation beliefs for those described with greater rehabilitation progress relative to speakers described with less rehabilitation. This package of experiments demonstrates that deviations in speech impact perceptions of mind. Further, communicative disabilities also affect beliefs that a speaker will rehabilitate their speech.
Additional Information
- Publication
- Dissertation
- Language: English
- Date: 2024
- Keywords
- Agency, Aphasia, Communicative Disability, Perception, Stereotyping
- Subjects
- Speech disorders $x Patients
- Stereotypes (Social psychology)
- Intelligence levels