Social psychology and mental retardation: towards an applied social psychology of mental retardation

Abstract

This thesis seeks to integrate the diverse fields of the social psychology of intergroup relations and mental retardation. In order to do this a a new cross-disciplinary field described as "The Social Psychology of Mental Retardation" (abbreviated to SPMR) is defined and explored theoretically and empirically. This involved a literature review of the current status of the social psychology of intergroup relations, especially as the field of social psychology emerges from the 'crisis of confidence' period, and incorporating the insights and changes that have occurred as a result of this. The history of the development of social psychology generally and applied social psychology were both considered as part of this. A review of current literature in mental retardation was carried out along with an attempt to explore the contemporary social context or social ecology of mental retardation in New Zealand, as well as the media (and other representations) of mentally retarded people. Themes were present throughout this thesis included: an explicit value orientation; a rejection of a positivistic-empiricist approach to scientific research; considering mental retardation as a social construct, and an emphasis on the social context or social ecology of mental retardation Two main pieces of empirical research were carried out. All the results were analysed using appropriate SAS statistical procedures. Study 1 involved a coin allocation task for 33 mentally retarded subjects using the matrix procedure originally developed by Henri Tajfel of Bristol University. The results here provided information about social categorization processes based on intellectual handicap as a social identity. These mentally retarded subjects were also given a 106 item adjective checklist, also used later on, and the results from this considered as part of the second part of Study 2. The second study consisted of two parts, both using undergraduate social science students as participants. The first involved the administration of a 24 item questionnaire in two forms to investigate a series of common myths and misconceptions about mental retardation and intellectual handicap. There was approximately 300 responses to each questionnaire. The results were analyzed to give information on the knowledge of both intellectual handicap and mental retardation of these participants, as well as for differences between these two group/labels. The second part of Study 2 involved the 106 item adjective checklist to investigate social stereotypes of various disabled or handicapped groups/group labels. Participants here were firstly asked to rate the adjectives on a 5 point favourability scale, and then to indicate which adjectives they considered applied to one of nine different groups/labels. This procedure constituted a New Zealand standardization of the adjective checklist. Multiple comparisons within this sample were made to clearly establish the contents of current stereotypes of the rated group/labels by this subject population. An index of the relative favourability of mental retardation and intellectual handicap was generated from these results. An indication of the relative complexity of the same stereotypes was also generated. It was concluded that mentally retarded adults do show the same ingroup preferences shown by nonhandicapped people in Tajfellian intergroup relations experiments, and that this indicated that intellectual handicap was a meaningful social category for mentally retarded adults. It was further concluded that there was generally a low prevalence of common myths and misconceptions about mental retardation and intellectual handicap from the first part of Study 2. There were several important exceptions to this finding. For the second part of Study 2, mentally retarded people, who identified themselves as intellectually handicapped, showed a strong preference to evaluate their own group highly, and ascribed more favourable adjectives than the students did to the intellectually handicapped or towards university students as a group. Study 2 showed that there was little difference made by the students between the terms intellectual handicap and mental retardation. Of the nine groups/labels rated by the students, intellectual handicap was ranked 6th and mental retardation 7th. The complexity analysis indicated quite similar rankings of mental retardation and intellectual handicap when compared to the favourability analysis. Overall it was concluded that the Tajfellian social identity theory derived from the European influenced social psychology of intergroup relations could form a useful basis for the development of an applied SPMR. The social acceptance and social integration of the mentally retarded in the classroom and in wider society was identified as a major area of current concern, where the proposed SPMR could be of value.