9600171 Persons coping with physical disability face certain "social handicaps" above and beyond their physical limitation. Often persons coping with physical disability are stigmatized, in that they are perceived to be incompetent in areas unaffected by their specific physical disability. Two theoretical explanations suggest that competing mechanisms account for the spread of stigma: (1) the presence of a stigma may overwhelm all other aspects of an individual's social identity and becomes the only status cue used to characterize the individual's social standing in a group or (2) physical disability may combine with other relevant status cues to form a composite assessment of an individual's competency. This Dissertation Improvement research investigates experimentally the presence of a physical disability along with other relevant status cues to determine which of these two interpretations best models the social effects of physical disability. Participants consist of freshmen females at a large university who sign up to participate in the experiments. Once in the laboratory, participants will be exposed to videos of "partners on a decision making project." These partners will be either portrayed as deaf or hearing and having high, equivalent or low status relative to the particpants. The results of the proposed study will (1) enhance our understanding of the social effects of physical disability; (2) combine relevant research in group processes and disability studies; and (3) suggest possible intervention strategies to alleviate the social handicaps encountered by persons coping with physical disability. ****
