Hidden Bias

Social Service Professionals’ Attitudes toward Physical Disability

Bibliographic Data

ID10550374
AuthorsAleksa Owens (0000-0003-3620-7081, University of Nevada, Reno, corresponding author), Aleksa Owen (School of Social Work, University of Nevada Aleksa Owen, PhD, LMSW, is assistant professor, , Reno, 1664 North Virginia Street, Building AB, Room 523A, Reno, NV 89557, USA), Charlotte Friedman (0000-0002-7150-4041, Council on Environmental Quality), Carli Friedman (The Council on Quality and Leadership Carli Friedman, PhD, is director of research, , Towson, MD, USA)
Year2026
Volume71
Issue2
Pages129-138
Publication date2026-01-17
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueSocial Work (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0037-8046 • E-ISSN: 1545-6846
PublisherOxford University Press (OUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1093/sw/swag006
PMID41762636
OpenAlexW7132828548
LanguageEN
References cited44

Implicit social cognition, also known as implicit bias, may impact social work practice. Because social workers commonly work with people with disabilities, it is important to understand more about social service professionals' attitudes about physical disability. By using descriptive and inferential statistical tests to quantitatively analyze secondary 2023 data from social service professionals, including social workers and counselors (n = 5,167), this study found that 70.3 percent of respondents reported having no explicit preference for people with or without physical disabilities, 23.7 percent reported preferring people without physical disabilities explicitly, and 6.0 percent reported preferring people with physical disabilities explicitly. For implicit attitudes, most participants had implicit preference for people without physical disabilities (77.8 percent), 13.7 percent had no implicit preference for people with or without physical disabilities, and 8.5 percent implicitly preferred people with physical disabilities. There was a statistically significant relationship between explicit and implicit attitudes, with most people having discordant explicit and implicit attitudes, often with low levels of explicit bias and high levels of implicit bias. This study also found age, gender, disability, having friends/family with disabilities, education, and political orientation correlated with explicit and implicit disability attitudes. The article ends with a discussion of educational interventions to reduce disability-related implicit bias

Implicit attitude · Implicit bias · Implicit personality theory · Physical disability · Preference · Psychological intervention · Disability Education and Employment · Disability Rights and Representation · Inclusion and Disability in Education and Sport · Social Work