Stereotypes of people with intellectual disabilities held by university education students

Abstract

Stereotypes result from interpersonal and intergroup relations and have specific repercussions on behaviour. This study investigated the stereotypes held by university students in the Faculty of Education, Complutense University of Madrid, Spain, towards people with intellectual disabilities and analysed possible attitudinal differences based on previous contact with people with intellectual disabilities or who had family members with intellectual disabilities. Results obtained through participants’ responses to a list of adjectives showed a clear positive stereotype formed by adjectives such as determined, sincere, affectionate, and capable but no significant differences were found between the groups. The study results were analysed in detail and compared with previous studies, from which future lines of research have been suggested, including longitudinal research, larger samples, and addressing additional variables. Examining the attitudes of people with intellectual disabilities towards others with intellectual disabilities is also important.

Keywords:

• Intellectual disabilities
• attitudes
• stereotypes
• adjectives
• university students

Correction Statement

This article has been corrected with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 While the last revision of the American Psychiatry Association (2022), the DSM-5-TR indicated the terminology “Intellectual Disability Disorder” but following Schalock et al. (2021) and Thurm and Srivastava (2022) throughout this document the term “intellectual disabilities” has been be used.