With the signing of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), it became unlawful for private and public businesses to discriminate against individuals with mental and physical abilities. The proposed study seeks to ask the question: how are individuals defining a mental impairment that limits a major life activity as defined in the ADA.
The aim of this proposal is to determine the potential role of psychologists and jurors in the evaluation and interpretation of the ADA. The sample will be comprised of two groups of individuals: practicing psychologists and jurors. The participants will be asked to complete a 76-item questionnaire that would examine how individuals are defining a mental impairment that limits a major life activity. It is hypothesized that both practicing psychologists and jurors will reach general consensus concerning major and minor impairments that limit major life activities, however, there will be more disagreement on impairments that fall within the moderate range. It is also hypothesized that there will be more of a general consensus among psychologist than jurors because psychologists have a better framework to assess a mental illness, therefore may be more capable of judging mental impairments in terms of major life activities. The implications surrounding how these groups of individuals are defining a mental impairment are abundant.
| Conklin, Steven E; Bridgman, Emma C; Su, Qiang et al. (2017) Specific Histidine Residues Confer Histatin Peptides with Copper-Dependent Activity against Candida albicans. Biochemistry 56:4244-4255 |
