Who opposes rights for persons with physical and intellectual disabilities

Abstract Research on human and civil rights has only rarely addressed people’s attitudestoward disability rights in the context of American society. This study was designedto gain a better understanding of why certain individuals might oppose expandedrightsforpeoplewhohavedisabilities.Pearson’scorrelationsrevealedthatindividu-als high on social dominance orientation (SDO) and right-wing authoritarianism(RWA)weremorelikelytorejectrightsforpersonswithintellectualandphysicaldis-abilitiesthanindividualsscoringloweronthesefactors.StructuralequationanalysesindicatedthatbothSDOandRWAaredirectlyimplicatedinoppositiontoexpandedrights for these groups.Moreover,the effects of SDO on rights attitudes appear to bemediated through internal motivation to respond without prejudice.Research on human and civil rights attitudes has tended toaddress two fundamental questions: What is the structureof those attitudes? (e.g., Crowson, 2004; Diaz-Veizades,Widaman, Little, & Gibbs, 1995; McFarland & Matthews,2005); and What factors predict their endorsement? (e.g.,Cohrs, Maes, Moschner, & Kielmann, 2007; Crowson D Diaz-Veizades et al., 1995;McFarland & Matthews, 2005; Moghaddam & Vuksanovic,1990). Studies addressing the former question have testedwhether attitudes toward human and civil rights may bebetter conceived as unidimensional versus multidimen-sional in nature, with some studies suggesting that theseattitudes can be differentiated into domains such as eco-nomic, political, equality, and privacy rights (Crowson,2004; Diaz-Veizades et al., 1995); as well as domainsof rights endorsement, commitment, and restriction(McFarland & Matthews, 2005). Studies addressing thelatter question have found that human and civil rights atti-tudes are predicted by a number of psychological and ideo-logical correlates, including right-wing authoritarianismand social dominance orientation (Cohrs et al., 2007;Crowson, DeBacker, & Thoma, 2005, 2006; McFarland M Crowson, DeBacker, & Thoma, 2007; McFarland M Narvaez, Getz, Rest, & Thoma, 1999),ethnocentrism (McFarland & Matthews, 2005), politicalconservatism (Crowson et al., 2007; McFarland M Narvaez et al., 1999).With rare exceptions (e.g., Crowson & Brandes, 2008),many of the aforementioned studies have excluded attitudespertaining to a group that has been historically marginalizedwithin society: people with disabilities. Indeed, the prejudiceanddiscriminationthatpeoplewithdisabilitiesfaceonacon-tinual basis raises the question of whether or not these indi-viduals are perceived by Americans as deserving of the rightsthat most citizens take for granted.A key aim of our research,therefore, is to strengthen our understanding of Americans’attitudes toward human and civil rights for people with dis-abilities, with particular emphasis on people whose disabili-ties are broadly intellectual or physical in nature. Moreover,this study deviates to a certain extent from previous research(however, see Cohrs et al., 2007) on attitudes toward humanandcivilrightsbyconsideringpotentialpredictorvariablesasfalling at different levels of proximity to rights-related atti-tudes. Thus, our approach involves devising and testing aproposed structural equation model (see Figure 1) aimed atpredicting attitudes toward rights for people with intellectualand physical disabilities.In our model, right-wing authoritarianism (RWA),social dominance orientation (SDO), affective prejudice (see