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Date Permissions Signed

4-28-2021

Date of Award

Spring 2021

Document Type

Masters Thesis

Department or Program Affiliation

Experimental Psychology

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

First Advisor

Lemm, Kristi M., 1971-

Second Advisor

Mallinckrodt, Brent

Third Advisor

Czopp, Alex

Abstract

We investigated how a disclosure of an applicant’s blindness would influence evaluations of applicants to a scholarship and whether disclosure early or late in the impression formation process would result in optimal application outcomes. A total of 356 participants read profiles of applicants whose qualifications were clearly strong, clearly weak, or mixed (diligent but unintelligent, or intelligent but lazy). Participants were told that the applicant was blind either at the at the beginning or at the end, or no disability was disclosed. We found that surprisingly, blind applicants were rated more positively than those without a disclosure, and the benefit of disclosing blindness was particularly salient when the applicants’ qualifications were weak or ambiguous. The results suggest that the benefit of disclosing blindness at the end of impression formation is better than doing it at the beginning of impression formation.

Type

Text

Keywords

Disability Disclosure

Publisher

Western Washington University

OCLC Number

1250320967

Subject – LCSH

Students with disabilities--Scholarships, fellowships, etc.; People with disabilities--Education (Higher); Discrimination against people with disabilities; Discrimination in employment

Format

application/pdf

Genre/Form

masters theses

Language

English

Rights

Copying of this document in whole or in part is allowable only for scholarly purposes. It is understood, however, that any copying or publication of this document for commercial purposes, or for financial gain, shall not be allowed without the author’s written permission.

Included in

Psychology Commons

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