AMERICAN JOURNAL ON INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2015, Vol. 120, No. 2, 110–124

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

Taiwanese Attitudes and Affective Reactions Toward Individuals and Coworkers Who Have Intellectual Disabilities Tsu-Hsuan Hsu, Ying-Ting Huang, Yi-Hui Liu, Joseph Ososkie, Juliet Fried, and Jill Bezyak

Abstract This study investigated the attitudes of Taiwanese employees toward individuals and their supported coworkers with intellectual disabilities (ID). The findings indicated that the general attitudes of Taiwanese employees toward individuals with ID and their affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID were positive. These discoveries were contrary to previous beliefs that Taiwanese people tended to have societal stigma toward people and coworkers with ID. The outcomes also showed that the participants who had longer work contact with their coworkers with ID tended to have more positive attitudes toward them. Therefore, promoting supported employment trainings and opportunities for qualified people with ID was recommended. Key Words: affective reactions; attitudes; employees; intellectual disability (ID); people with disabilities; Taiwanese Negative attitudes held by employers toward people with disabilities have been constantly regarded by many vocational rehabilitation experts as one of the most influential factors that have limited work opportunities for people with disabilities. Other researchers have found that unwilling or unfriendly attitudes toward working with employees with disabilities held by coworkers without disabilities could also have significant effects that may lead this population to fail or become unable to maintain their jobs (LengnickHall & Gaunt, 2007). Individuals with intellectual disability (ID), however, were less well accepted by the general public or workers without disabilities compared to others with different disabilities (Corrigan et al., 2000; Gordon, Tantillo, Feldman, & Perrone, 2004). For an example, Wang, Thomas, Chan, and Cheing (2003) discovered that both American and Taiwanese people had a preference for interacting with people with physical disabilities rather than those who had ID. Correspondingly, Taiwanese transition specialists revealed workers with ID were not only viewed by the community as 110

people who were emotionally unstable and might display challenging behaviors, but they were also considered to be employees who had limited job competence by their coworkers without disabilities (Hsu, Ososkie, & Huang, 2009). The results of the previous studies implied that the efforts made by employment specialists in supporting people with disabilities in terms of their work opportunity could be vacated simply as a result of negative attitudes toward them in the workplace. Limited research, however, has been conducted to examine attitudes of Taiwanese employees toward their coworkers with ID. Therefore, the main purpose of this study was to investigate the attitudes of Taiwanese people toward individuals with ID in general and their affective reactions toward their supported coworkers with ID.

Attitudes of Taiwanese Toward People With Disabilities Misra (1994) stated that ‘‘culture is the collective beliefs and knowledge that govern social behavior. Culture includes the language of people, their Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

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standards and perceptions, the way in which they display anger or joy, and the gestures they use during a conversation’’ (p. 145). When implementing this concept to examine one’s attitudes toward human disabilities, an understanding of a particular group’s specific attitudes toward people with disabilities may be uncovered. Taiwan’s population has been primarily composed of mainland Chinese who immigrated to the island a few centuries ago (Cooper, 1996). Therefore, the common attitudes of Taiwanese toward people with disabilities have been similar to those held by Chinese. For example, the general Chinese terms for people with disabilities were canfei or canji, which meant that individuals with disabilities were useless or have an illness (Liu, 2001). These two terms have not only been used by Taiwanese and Chinese to describe people with disabilities but also have been adopted to reflect the negative attitudes held by Taiwanese people toward people with disabilities. The common attitudes toward people with disabilities held by Taiwanese people have also been deeply influenced by the concept of karma, which evolved from Buddhism. According to Obeyesekere (2002), karma means that one’s ‘‘intentional ethical action [will determine] the nature and place of rebirth [in his/her next life]’’ (p. 2). Although not all people from Chinese dominant societies regarded themselves as Buddhists, the notion of karma has been broadly spread. For instance, the results of a study clearly verified that the majority of Taiwanese mothers of children with disabilities deeply believed in the existence of karma, and they considered that ‘‘they might have done something bad in their previous lives, which [led] their children to be born with disabilities’’ (Huang, Fried, & Hsu, 2009, p. 89).

Attitudes Toward Individuals With Intellectual Disability (ID) Attitudes or beliefs toward people with disabilities may be examined through language usage. Several terms have been used to describe individuals with ID, such as idiot, feeble-minded, imbecile, moron, and mental deficient (Nehring, 2005). These words have been used to illustrate that people with ID were regarded as persons who were unproductive, unstable, and incapable of working or living independently. Using ID to describe mental retardation or associated conditions was T.-H. Hsu et al.

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

regarded as a professional and political shift (American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities, 2010; Carlson, 2010; Harris, 2006). Studies have been conducted to examine people’s attitudes toward individuals with physical disabilities (Furnham & Thompson, 1994) or to compare people’s attitudes toward persons with varied disabilities, such as physical disabilities and ID (Bowman, 1987; Gordon, Minnes, & Holden, 1990). The primary objective of these related studies was to obtain a better understanding of the public’s attitudes toward people with particular disabilities. The outcomes of relevant studies indicated that people with ID were viewed with less favor when compared to others identified with different disabilities. For example, the results of a study demonstrated that people viewed individuals with mental illness and ID as the least accepted population that they would prefer to establish friendships with when compared to others with physical or chronic disabilities (Gordon et al., 2004). Wang and colleagues (2003) also discovered that mental illness and ID were viewed as the most negative disability type held by Taiwanese people. The preference of interacting with individuals with physical disabilities rather than those with ID was a consistent finding. This prejudice may become a barrier that could influence opportunities for people with ID to obtain employment and establish social networks.

Employees’ Attitudes Toward Their Coworkers With ID Based on the concept of supported employment, workplace inclusion and social integration have been considered the two primary advantages for people with ID working in an inclusive setting (Powell et al., 1991; Rusch, Wilson, Hughes, & Heal, 1995). Researchers have found, however, that workers with ID were only physically included, rather than socially accepted in their workplaces (Chadsey-Rusch, Gonzalez, Tines, & Johnson, 1989). Ferguson, McDonnell, and Drew (1993) also uncovered similar results in their investigation. First, employees without disabilities initiated more interactions, such as teasing and joking among themselves, than with their coworkers with ID. Second, employees without disabilities asked more work-related directions in comparison to 111

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their counterparts with ID. Most significantly, employees with ID had more interactions with their job coaches rather than with their coworkers without disabilities. Similarly, Taiwanese researchers found that workers with ID were not only viewed as emotionally unstable but were also considered to have had limited job competence by their coworkers without disabilities (Hsu et al., 2009). These findings illustrated that employees with ID had limited opportunities for receiving natural support from their coworkers without disabilities as anticipated. In other words, workers with ID were perceived differently and unequally by their coworkers without disabilities.

Effects of Demographic Variables on Attitudes Toward People With Disabilities Based on the Multidimensional Opinion About Mental Illness Scales (OMI) developed by Cohen and Struening in the 1960s (Cohen & Struening, 1962; Struening & Cohen, 1963)., several factors could affect individuals’ attitudes toward people with disabilities, including age, gender, education, knowledge regarding people with disabilities, and years of experience working with people with disabilities (Geskie & Salasek, 1988). Related studies have indicated that people with higher educational attainment tend to have more positive attitudes toward people with disabilities (Scior, Kan, McLoughlin, & Sheridan, 2010; Yazbeck, McVilly, & Parmenter, 2004). Researchers have explained that people with higher educational attainment may be more liberal, open, and knowledgeable about people with disabilities and related issues that have led them to have more favorable attitudes toward people with disabilities (Lau & Cheung, 1999). Researchers were, however, unable to infer the influence of other demographic variables on people’s attitudes toward people with disabilities. Some researchers have mentioned that the difference in social interaction styles between females and males could lead them to have different attitudes toward people with disabilities (Tang, Davis, Wu, & Oliver, 2000). Yet, the outcomes of associated studies have indicated that gender either could (Popovich, Scherbaum, Scherbaum, & Ploinko, 2003) or could not (Chenoweth, Pryor, Jeon, & Hall-Pullin, 2004) influence people’s attitudes toward people with disabilities. 112

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

These inconsistent results regarding the effects of other demographic factors, such as age, could also be found. For example, researchers discovered that younger people have more positive perceptions toward people with disabilities (Bakheit & Shanmugalingam, 1997; Yazbeck et al., 2004). Other researchers indicated that the lack of education of older persons with regard to disability awareness could have led them to have negative attitudes toward people with disabilities (Dorji & Solomon, 2009). Results of other studies, however, found that age was not a determining variable that influenced attitudes toward people with disabilities (Al-Abdulwahab & Al-Gain, 2003; Perry, Ivy, Conner, Shelar, 2008). Researchers have provided explanations to clarify why people’s attitudes toward people with disabilities varied in dichotomous. These explanations included the following: (a) differences of individual characteristics and personalities (Horner-Johnson et al., 2002), (b) diversity of educational backgrounds (Hunt & Hunt, 2000), (c) influences of sociocultural factors (Huang et al., 2009; Livneh & Cook, 2005), (d) types of different contact experiences with people with disabilities (Krahe & Altwasser, 2006), and (e) the change of attitudes toward people with disabilities resulting from the improvement of social and human service systems (Huang, Ososkie, & Hsu, 2011). Therefore, it was difficult to ensure which demographic factors may or may not have influenced people’s perspectives toward people with disabilities.

Employment Legislation and Barriers for Taiwanese With Disabilities Realizing the importance of employment for people with disabilities, the Taiwanese government has passed significant employment-related legislation to ensure that people with disabilities could receive appropriate services and vocational training. The Regulations of Establishment of Shelter Factories and Reward for the Disabled promulgated in 2002 were considered the first regulations that clearly outlined the functions of sheltered employment for Taiwanese with disabilities (Bureau of Employment and Vocational Training, Republic of China, Taiwan, 2010). The amendment to The Employment Services Act in 2003 (Laws and Regulations Database of the Republic of China, 2010). emphasized the importance of equal opportunity of employment for people with disabilities. The 24th Article Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

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under this legislation required government agencies to provide financial assistance and to develop a career plan for people with disabilities who were willing to receive job training and seek future employment opportunities. The 28th Article asked that related public employment service agencies conduct follow-up visits to provide people with disabilities with necessary assistance to adapt to their new jobs. The most comprehensive legislation for supporting people with disabilities in terms of their employment was the People with Disabilities Rights Protection Act in 2007 (The Government Information Office, Republic of China, Taiwan, 2009). According to the 38th Article, all government-related institutions or agencies must hire at least 3% of people with disabilities if they had 34 or more employees. Any private organizations must employ at least 1% of people with disabilities if they had over 67 employees (The Government Information Office, Republic of China, Taiwan, 2009). A monthly fine that equaled the minimum wage of hiring an individual without a disability would be applied to organizations that did not meet this requirement. The total amount of the monthly fines depended on how many people with disabilities were supposed to be employed. These fines would be collected for supporting people with disabilities in relation to their vocational rehabilitation services. Whereas the Taiwanese government has striven for the improvement of employment participation among people with disabilities, a low employment rate has still been a prevailing trend (Shieh & Huang, 2008; Yiu, 2004). A study conducted by the Taiwanese government provided factors to explain this phenomenon (Council of Labor Affairs, Republic of China, Taiwan, 2009). They included lower physical abilities to perform job requirements, limited work competence, economic recession, lower educational achievements, poor interpersonal relationships with coworkers without disabilities, and negative attitudes toward people with disabilities held by the general public.

Research Questions Negative attitudes of employees could lead their coworkers with ID to face problems in keeping their jobs or seeking promotions (Freedman & Fesko, 1996; Lengnick-Hall & Gaunt, 2007). Limited research, however, has been conducted to examine attitudes of Taiwanese people toward T.-H. Hsu et al.

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

individuals with ID in general and toward their coworkers with ID. Therefore, two specific research questions were addressed in this study: (a) What are the general attitudes of Taiwanese employees without disabilities toward individuals with ID and their affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID? and (b) To what extent are gender, age, educational attainment, duration of work contact, and type of contact of Taiwanese employees associated with affective reactions toward their supported coworkers with ID?

Methods Participants The following were criteria for eligibility in our study: (a) The research participants were required to be Taiwanese without a disability, and (b) the recruited participants must have worked with their coworkers with ID for at least 3 months. Employees with ID who worked in supported settings consecutively for 3–6 months were considered to be successfully employed (Wehman, Inge, Revell, & Brooke, 2007). These criteria ensured that participants’ opinions toward their coworkers with ID were based on the perspectives of Taiwanese people without disabilities who had knowledge to share about their experiences regarding working with people with disabilities. Through the assistance of employment specialists from vocational rehabilitation agencies, 140 Taiwanese employees participated in this study. Five (4%) participants were removed from the study due to three or more incomplete responses in their demographic information sheet and surveys. This produced a successful completion rate of 96%. Among these 135 participants, 44 (33%) were male, and 91 (67%) were female. The ages of the participants ranged from 20 to 59 years with a mean age of 34.67 years. Of these participants, 40 (30%) individuals had senior high school or equivalent diplomas, 38 (28%) had junior or technical college degrees, and 44 (33%) held undergraduate degrees. The mean length of work contact experience with coworkers with ID was 2.06 years. Table 1 shows the background information of research participants and contact patterns between them and their coworkers with ID. The majority of their coworkers with ID were employed to perform cleaning jobs. Table 2 shows the work duties of their coworkers with ID. 113

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

AMERICAN JOURNAL ON INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2015, Vol. 120, No. 2, 110–124

Table 1 Characteristics of Research Participants Variable

N

Percent (%)

Gender Male Female

44 91

33 67

Age in years 20–29 30–39 40–49 50 and over

56 41 25 13

41 30 19 10

6 40 38 44 6 1

4 30 28 33 4 0

Mean

SD

34.67

9.59

2.06

1.86

Education Junior high school Senior high school or equivalent Junior or technical college Undergraduate degrees Graduate degrees Unanswered Length of contact with coworkers with ID 3–6 months 7–12 months 13–24 months Over 24 months Type of contact Contact during work Contact during break or lunch time Contact after work

39 17 30 49

29 13 22 36

135 10 65

100 79 48

N 5 135.

Table 2 Job Duties of Participants’ Coworkers With Intellectual Disabilities Work Setting

N

Percent (%)

Cleaning and replenishing commodities (convenience stores) Washing cars Cleaning offices Cleaning hospitals Laundry men/women Cleaning fast-food restaurants Cleaning and dishwashing in Asian-style restaurants Cleaning and serving clients in bakeries Cleaning parks Delivering interoffice mail

49 26 21 10 8 8 5 3 3 2

36 19 16 7 6 6 4 2 2 1

N 5 135.

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Procedures The researchers contacted public/private vocational rehabilitation organizations and health service agencies. The purpose of the study was explained to the directors and employment specialists through e-mails and in-person contacts. Directors and employment specialists referred the researchers to employers who were able to make the final decision on whether their employees could participate in this study. The employers included line managers, supervisors, human resources managers, personnel directors, and public relation personnel. A package including all research documents was distributed to each participant through the assistance of related personnel directors mentioned previously and employment specialists in the presence of the researcher during their lunch breaks. This packet contained four documents: a voluntary consent form of research participation; a demographic information sheet; and the survey instruments, including the Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory-Revised (MRAI-R) and the Affective Reactions Subscale of the Disability Questionnaire (AR). These two instruments were translated into Chinese by professors who were proficient in both English and Chinese through the ‘‘committee approach’’ technique. This method referred ‘‘to the type of translation effort in which two [or] three people translate from the original to target language and then compare results’’ (Brislin, Lonner, & Thorndike, 1973, p. 46). It ensured that the meaning of the survey instruments was presented without losing original meanings. The slight modifications of language usage were also made to ensure that they met the objectives of the study and contained people-first language. For example, the term ‘‘people who are mentally retarded’’ was replaced by ‘‘people with ID’’ and the term ‘‘disabled people’’ was also changed to ‘‘people with ID’’ in the Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory-Revised (MRAI-R) and the Affective Reactions Subscale of the Disability Questionnaire (AR). The participants could complete these surveys at their most convenient times and locations, including at home after work. The researcher retrieved these documents in person during lunch breaks 1 day after distribution or waited for notice of completion from employers, personnel directors, and employment specialists. The participants were provided with a sealable T.-H. Hsu et al.

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

envelope in which to place their surveys once completed. Since the participants were not required to write their names on the survey sheets, their identities were kept confidential. All research participants were notified of their right to withdraw from participation in the study for any reason in their consent form.

Measures The MRAI-R measured people’s attitudes toward persons with ID from various perspectives, including integration-segregation, social distance, private rights, and subtle derogatory belief. A total of 29 items were rated on a 4-point scale: (1) strongly disagree, (2) disagree, (3) agree, and (4) strongly agree. Items worded in a negative direction with a disagree response symbolized a favored attitude toward people with disabilities. The reversed items, which contained items 1, 4, 6, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 21, 23, 25, and 27, were transformed for scoring. A total score of the MRAI-R was the sum of the responses that the participants gave for all 29 items. The score on the scale ranged from 29 to 116. The higher score meant a more favorable attitude toward people with ID (Krajewski & Flaherty, 2000). The MRAI-R was used in related studies and results indicated that the scale was reliable. The MRAI-R was used by Hampton and Xiao (2008) to examine attitudes toward people with disabilities held by Chinese and American people. The results produced .78 reliability estimate of the MRAI-R in the Chinese version and a .90 reliability estimate in the English version. Hampton and Xiao (2008) further used the Chinese version scale to measure Chinese college students’ attitudes toward people with disabilities. The outcomes of their study indicated that the reliability coefficient of the MRAI-R was .80. In the present study, a Cronbach’s Alpha value on the Chinese MRAI-R produced an internal consistency reliability value of .82. This reliability value paralleled the study conducted by Hampton and Xiao (2008). The AR had 21 items that were designed to examine people’s feelings toward working with people with disabilities (Popovich et al., 2003). The respondents rated these items on a 7-point Likert-type scale which ranged from completely agree (1) to completely disagree (7). Some items, which included items 2, 3, 6, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 16, 17, and 20, were reverse coded for scoring. The scores for the AR were computed by finding 115

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the sum of these 21 items. The higher score meant a more favorable attitude toward people with disabilities. The original developers used the AR in their initial two studies and yielded acceptable Cronbach’s alpha values of .69 and .74, respectively (Popovich et al., 2003). This scale was also implemented by Copeland (2007) to assess employers’ attitudes toward people with disabilities and produced a reliability of .816. According to Copeland (2007), internal consistency was higher than the original studies, which may have resulted from the fact that their research participants had real experiences in dealing with disability related issues in the workplace. In the present study, the internal consistency reliability on this instrument was high (a 5 .85). This might also have been due to having real work experience with employees with ID of the participants. Copeland, Chan, Bezyak, and Fraser (2010) conducted exploratory factor analysis to assess the construct validity of the AR. Seventeen items remained and were loaded onto three dimensions described as (a) negative cognitive and affective reactions, (b) positive attitudes toward accommodations, and (c) positive attitudes toward equal treatment of people with disabilities in the workplace. The coefficient values were .83, .63, and .61, respectively. Copeland and colleagues (2010) concluded that the AR could be used to measure people’s attitudes toward people with disabilities in the workplace due to the identification of the three underlying attitudinal constructs mentioned above.

Data Analysis For the first research question, the composite scores were calculated for the MRAI-R and the AR by adding all items of both scales, respectively. The mean, median, and standard deviation for composite scores of each scale were determined in order to examine whether participants’ general attitude toward people with ID and affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID were positive. Data analysis for the second research question included several procedures. Because the feature of each factor’s variable was different, age and length of work contact were treated as continuous variables rather than categorical variables at the beginning. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to separately inspect whether each of these two factors related to participants’ affective 116

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

reactions toward working with their coworkers with ID. To re-examine the accuracy of the findings found through use of the Pearson correlation coefficient, multiple regression was used to examine how gender, age, educational attainment, duration of work contact, and types of contact explained affective reactions toward coworkers with ID held by the participants. According to Glass and Hopkins (1996), multiple regression is a common data analysis technique that could be ‘‘employed for predicting [a dependent variable] from two or more independent variables’’ (p. 170). Later, backward regression was used to re-examine the results found through application of stepwise forward regression. To implement backward regression, gender, educational levels, and types of contact were converted from categorical variables to dummy variables, which would be considered as continuous variables.

Results Results of the data analyses are reported in the following paragraphs. One analysis examined general and affective reactions toward people and coworkers with ID held by the participants. Another analysis inspected whether different demographic factors influenced attitudes of the participants toward working with their coworkers with ID. 1. What are the general attitudes of Taiwanese employees toward individuals with ID and their affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID? For the MRAI-R, the highest score recorded was 106 points, while the lowest score was 62 points, with a mean score of 80.63 and a standard deviation of 7.95. Among these 29 items, item 3 was rated the highest, with M 5 3.30, whereas item 25 was rated the lowest, with M 5 1.93. The mean score among all 29 items was 2.78 with a standard deviation of .27. Because the mean score was significantly higher than 2.5, it indicated that the participants had a positive attitude toward people with ID in general. For the AR, the highest score recorded was 147 points, and the lowest score was 42 points, with a mean score of 99.47 and a standard deviation of 17.56. Among these 21 items, item 11 was rated the highest, with M 5 6.01, whereas item 18 was rated the lowest, with M 5 2.90. The item mean score (4.73) of the AR was higher than 4, which indicated that respondents also had a positive attitude regarding their coworkers with ID. Table 3 shows a summary of the results of the MRAI-R and the Affective Reactions Subscale. 2. To what extent are gender, age, educational attainment, duration of work contact, and type of contact of Taiwanese employees associated with affective reactions toward their supported coworkers with ID? First, age and

Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

EAAIDD DOI: 10.1352/1944-7558-120.2.110

AMERICAN JOURNAL ON INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES 2015, Vol. 120, No. 2, 110–124

Table 3 Composite and Item Mean Scores of the Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory-Revised and the Affective Reactions Subscale Mental Retardation Attitude Inventory-Revised (MRAI-R) Composite Mean Item Mean

135 135

80.63 2.78

length of work contact were treated as continuous variables. A Pearson correlation coefficient was calculated to separately examine the relationships between these two factors and participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID. The outcomes showed that both age and length of work contact were associated with participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID (age, p 5 .013, r 5 .21; length of work contact, p 5 .025, r 5 .19). To be more specific, participants who were older or who had a longer length of work contact with their coworkers with ID tended to have more positive affective reactions toward this population. Later, multiple regression was chosen to examine how these five demographic variables explained affective reactions toward coworkers with ID held by participants. Gender, educational level, and types of contact were converted from categorical variables to dummy variables. When applying stepwise forward regression first, type of contact was removed, followed in order by gender, education, and duration of work contact. The results indicated that age (t 5 .21, p 5 .017) was the only significant variable that was first entered and stayed in the model when the p-value was set at .05. To ensure the accuracy of the results found in stepwise forward regression, background regression was implemented. First, the p-value was set at .05, and the results indicated that age was the only variable that explained the participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID. For the purpose of possibly including more variables that could be used to explain the relationships between these five demographic variables and the participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID, the pvalue was set at .10 this time. Collinearity valuables of excluded factors when using backward regression showed that the type of contact was first removed, and then gender and education were taken out sequentially. 2. The results of applying backward regression indicated that age (t 5 .165, p 5 .062) and duration of work contact (t 5 .152, p 5 .086) were the two variables remaining in the model. The results again demonstrated that the participants who were older and who had longer work contact with their coworkers with ID had more positive affective reactions, Affective Reaction 5

Affective Reactions (AR)

7.95 0.27

135 135

99.47 4.74

17.56 0.83

85.852 + .307 (age) + 1.425 (length of work contact). The results, shown in Table 4, were paralleled with the outcomes found by using the Pearson correlation coefficient.

Discussion Krajewski and Flaherty (2000) indicated that the item mean of MRAI-R above 2.5 was regarded as having positive attitude toward people with disabilities. In their study, the mean on the MRAI-R was 2.74. In addition, they found that gender and frequency of contact influenced participants’ attitudes toward people with ID. Correspondingly, for the first research question, the findings showed that the participants’ general attitude toward individuals with ID were positive since the mean score among all 29 items was 2.78. Similarly, a longer length of work contact also positively influenced participants’ attitudes toward coworkers with ID. Popovich et al. (2003) mentioned that the item mean on the AR subscale above 3.00 could be regarded as having a neutral to slightly positive attitude toward the issue of working with people with disabilities. In their two initial studies, the item mean of AR subscale were 3.16 and 3.04. In the present study, the mean score of AR subscale was 4.73, which revealed that these participants held positive attitudes toward their coworkers with ID. The results were different from previous references that mentioned Taiwanese people tended to have societal stigma toward people with disabilities in general (Chang & McConkey, 2008; Huang et al., 2009). The respondents rated items 3, 5, 11, 2,

Table 4 Impacts of Five Demographic Factors on Affective Reactions (Backward Regression) Independent Variables Constant Age Length of contact

Coefficient (b)

Standard error (S.E.)

Standardized Beta-Coefficient (b)

t

p

86.852 0.307 1.425

5.618 0.163 0.825

– .165 .152

15.46 1.883 1.727

, .001 .062 .086

R2 5 .066.

T.-H. Hsu et al.

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and 19 of the MRAI-R as the top five highest scores (see Table 5). This indicated that the participants were willing to have their children interact with other children with ID, had no objection to attending social activities with people with ID, and accepted them living in the same neighborhoods. Similar findings were discovered when exploring the participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID. First, the respondents showed high comfort levels in interacting with their coworkers with ID during breaks (item 11) and demonstrated a willingness to accommodate their work schedules (item 7), as well as workspace (item 14). Additionally, the participants believed having workers with ID could positively contribute to the workplace (item 3), and they also trusted their coworkers with ID to have proper job skills in performing the necessary job tasks (item 20). The results also indicated, however, the respondents believed that their coworkers with ID should not perform dangerous tasks (item 18) and must be supervised intensively (item 21) (see Table 6). There were various potential explanations for these findings. Belcher and Smith (1994)

mentioned that employees’ attitudes toward workers with disabilities regarding their work competence could have been changed due to work contact. This explanation is supported by Allport’s ‘‘contact hypothesis,’’ which indicated that people could have changed their prejudiced attitudes toward specific populations by having direct contact experience with them (Allport, 1979; Krahe & Altwasser, 2006). Therefore, having regular work contact with workers with ID allowed the participants to realize the work competence and personality of their coworkers with ID which changed their negative stereotypes toward them. It was also a possible reason that having nontask-related contact experiences not only provided the participants social interaction opportunities with their coworkers with ID, but also allowed them to explore what kinds of challenges their coworkers encountered in mainstream society and in their workplace. These challenges may include the issues of searching for a job (Ainsworth & Baker, 2004), accommodating work duties (Brodwin, Parker, & DeLaGarza, 2003), and learning to live independently (Hsu et al., 2009). These were the best

Table 5 Key Results of Mental Retardation Aptitude Inventory-Revised (MRAI-R) Items 2

Statements Min 1 We should integrate people with and without intellectual disabilities into the same neighborhoods. 1 3 I would allow my children to accept an invitation to a birthday party given for a child with an intellectual disability. 5 I am willing for my child to have children with 2 intellectual disabilities as close personal friends. 1 11 I have no objection to attending the movies or a play in the company of people with intellectual disabilities. 17 Having people with and without disabilities work at 1 the same jobsites will be beneficial to both. 19 I would be willing to introduce a person with an 1 intellectual disability to friends and neighbors in my home town. 1 25 Even with equality of social opportunity, people with intellectual disabilities could not show themselves equal in social situations to people without intellectual disabilities. Overall 62

118

Max 4

Mean 3.16

SD 0.60

Median 3

Rank 4

4

3.30

0.59

3

1

4

3.24

0.48

3

2

4

3.24

0.55

3

2

4

2.96

0.60

3

11

4

3.14

0.51

3

5

4

1.93

0.58

2

29

106

80.63

7.95

79

Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

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Table 6 Key Results of Affective Reactions Subscale Item 2 3 7

11 12

14

17 18

20

21

Statement I am comfortable with the idea of working with a person with an intellectual disability. People with intellectual disabilities can positively contribute the workplace. I would be willing to cover work for a co-worker with an intellectual disability who had to miss work because of his/her disability. I would socialize with a coworker with an intellectual disability during my work breaks. I wouldn’t mind having my job redesigned to accommodate a coworker with an intellectual disability. I would not mind taking the time to set up workplace for a worker with an intellectual disability to make it easy for him/her to use. It is important to have workers with intellectual disabilities in the workforce. I would not want to work with a worker with an intellectual disability on a job that could be dangerous. I trust that workers with intellectual disabilities who are hired would be able to perform the necessary tasks of the job. Workers with intellectual disabilities would require high levels of supervision.

Overall

opportunities for the participants to acquire disability-related knowledge; accordingly, improving their general attitudes toward other individuals with ID. With respect to the second question, the results indicated that the participants who were older or who had a longer length of work contact with workers with ID tended to have more positive affective reactions toward them. Different from other research that indicated older people tended to have negative attitudes toward people with disabilities due to possibly cultural influence (Bakheit & Shanmugalingam, 1997) or lacking of disability knowledge and awareness (Dorji & Solomon, 2009), the older participants had more positive affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID. One of the major reasons could have been that they may have had longer lengths of work experiences than younger people. This T.-H. Hsu et al.

Min 1

Max 7

Mean 5.24

SD Median 1.55 5

Rank 7

1

7

5.33

1.41

5

6

1

7

5.89

1.35

6

2

1

7

6.01

1.29

7

1

1

7

4.68

2.06

5

13

1

7

5.74

1.35

6

3

1

7

5.03

1.41

5

9

1

7

2.90

1.94

2

21

1

7

5.45

1.35

5

5

1

7

3.47

1.78

3

20

42

147

99.47

17.56

101

experience may have led them to have more opportunities to interact with people with disabilities in the workplace. This could positively change their affective reactions toward workers with ID due to acquiring disability awareness through more opportunities to interact with them. Because older participants had longer lengths of work experiences, they might be more familiar with the employment rights of people with disabilities due to having frequent contacts with them. This may have led older participants to be more knowledgeable and friendly toward their coworkers with ID. On the contrary, younger participants may have had limited lengths of work experiences that led them to have restrained chances to be familiar with their coworkers with ID. This may have caused them to feel uncomfortable about how to work and/or interact with them. 119

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Implications for Practice In this study, a longer work contact experience was a positive factor influencing affective reactions of the participants toward their coworkers with ID. This confirmed that supported employment was one of the best methods to assist people with ID living independently and establishing social networks. Therefore, providing supported employment trainings and opportunities for qualified people with ID should be promoted. It was also important to note that the older participants tended to have more positive affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID. Some researchers have emphasized the importance of providing disability information, such as etiology and myths about disability, through educational campaigns (Tang et al., 2000). Therefore, this could be a proper technique to assist younger employees with acquiring accurate disability knowledge. Another method could be to assign experienced workers to assist younger employees in working with their counterparts with ID. This could help younger employees obtain a better understanding of their coworkers with ID and thus reduce conflicts resulting from misunderstandings. Finally, the data collected during the study indicated that the majority of the participants’ coworkers with ID were working on laborintensive tasks. Thus, identifying specific vocational abilities and career interests of clients with ID must be emphasized. Employment specialists could work with employers to find out what positions were difficult to fill and then restructure these jobs so that people with disabilities could perform them (Gilbride & Stensrud, 1992). This is known as demand-side job development, which could help employment specialists identify different types of jobs suitable for their clients with ID.

Limitations and Future Research Several limitations of this survey study were identified. First, people’s attitudes toward people with disabilities could have been established through cultural beliefs, life experiences, and interactions with them (Antonak & Livneh, 1991; Oppenheim, 1992). This meant that attitudes toward people with disabilities could change back and forth if people had different contact experiences. Therefore, the information regarding the participants’ general attitudes toward individuals with ID and their affective 120

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reactions toward coworkers with ID may simply have expressed what the participants felt at that particular period of time, rather than their lifelong attitudes toward people with disabilities. Future researchers who are interested in examining the attitudes of Taiwanese people toward persons with ID should recruit participants with different backgrounds, such as consumers, students, or the general public whose neighbors have ID. These relevant studies would help future researchers examine whether the general attitudes toward people with ID held by Taiwanese people would be different compared to the results found in this study. Future relevant studies also could be used to confirm whether Taiwanese people may have already changed their attitudes toward people with ID in a positive direction. Second, although the results showed that the participants had positive affective reactions toward their coworkers with ID, this information was based only on self-reported data. Therefore, it was possible that hidden information may have been found if observation was taken as a research tool in this study. Additionally, the two surveys that were implemented in this study used Agree/ Disagree (A/D) response format, which may not be able to exactly obtain the information the researchers wanted when comparing with Item Specific (IS) format questionnaires (Saris, Revilla, Krosnick, & Shaeffer, 2010). For a future direction, researchers could use both questionnaires and observations as means to examine social and work interaction patterns between workers with and without ID (ChadseyRusch et al., 1989; Rusch et al., 1995). Conducting face-to-face interviews would be another method to obtain a better understanding of how Taiwanese people perceive individuals with ID in general and in the workplace. Finally, it was possible that personnel directors and employment specialists who supported this study may have recruited participants with whom they were most familiar. Thus, the participants may have responded to these survey questions incorrectly to maintain their positive images even though the research was anonymous. This type of response is considered social desirability (Krosnick, Judd, & Wittenbrink, 2005). Therefore, further study should explore how Taiwanese workers with ID perceive attitudes of their coworkers without disabilities toward themselves, which would be an opportunity to examine similar issues emphasized in this study from Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

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different vantage points. The results of conducting such research would be an appropriate method to verify the outcomes of this study.

Conclusion Supported employment was considered as a preferred career option for individuals with ID because it provided job opportunities in the real workplace and allowed them to establish social networks (Shafer, 1989). The negative attitudes toward employees with ID, however, held by their counterparts without disabilities have been regarded as a significant barrier that could have led them to fail, withdraw, or resign from their jobs (Freedman & Fesko, 1996; Hsu et al., 2009). The outcomes of this study showed that Taiwanese employees had positive general attitudes toward individuals with ID and also had positive affective reactions toward working with them; these findings were encouraging. The results also demonstrated that age and having longer work contact were two major factors that could positively influence the participants’ affective reactions toward their coworkers with disabilities. Therefore, the recommendation of promoting supported employment was made, in combination of suggestions of practices for rehabilitation practitioners and related social service providers.

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Received 4/7/2013, accepted 11/21/2014. Authors: Tsu-Hsuan Hsu and Ying-Ting Huang, TOKO University, Puzi City, Taiwan; Yi-Hui Liu, Taipei College of Maritime Technology, New Taipei City, Taiwan; Joseph Ososkie, Juliet Fried, and Jill Bezyak, University of Northern Colorado, Greeley. Address correspondence concerning this article to Tsu-Hsuan Hsu, TOKO University, 2F, Alley 37, LN46, Ershizhang Rd, Xindian Dist., New Taipei City, Taiwan, 23141 (e-mail: fenton47@ gmail.com).

Taiwanese Employees’ Attitudes

Taiwanese attitudes and affective reactions toward individuals and coworkers who have intellectual disabilities.

This study investigated the attitudes of Taiwanese employees toward individuals and their supported coworkers with intellectual disabilities (ID). The...
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