2023 Volume 39 Issue 2 Pages 87-96
This research investigated why people without disabilities are reluctant to help those with physical disabilities. Focusing on Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), we conducted a questionnaire and vignette study with Japanese participants (mostly university students) without disabilities. Overall, we found that SDO hinders offering help to people with physical disabilities. In Study 1 (N＝67), we demonstrated that individuals with higher SDO were less likely to offer help when they perceive people with physical disabilities as cold. In Study 2 (N＝140), we examined whether a perceived threat to an existing hierarchical structure, induced by a manipulation, would reduce the willingness to support those with disabilities among individuals with higher SDO. The results showed that although SDO and perceived threat decreased an individual’s willingness to support those with disabilities, SDO did not moderate the relationship between perceived threat and the reduced willingness to support those with disabilities. These findings suggest that people are motivated to justify and maintain their superiority over those with disabilities, suggesting that further discussions on the associations between improving the status of people with disabilities and threats to the existing social hierarchy are needed.
