Explore Rice

3/15/2006

Applicants should acknowledge physical disability during job interviews

A main concern of physically disabled job seekers is whether or not they should acknowledge their condition during the interview process. Research shows that physically disabled individuals can benefit from openly addressing their condition and, a new study suggests, the earlier, the better.

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While employers are prohibited by the Americans With Disabilities Act from inquiring about an applicant's disability, several studies show that interviewers look more favorably on physically disabled individuals when the applicants themselves acknowledge their disabilities during the interview. New research by university psychologists demonstrates for the first time that timing may be very important as well.  

"Preliminary evidence suggests that physically disabled individuals may benefit from acknowledging their condition in an interview setting, and it seems most strategic to do so early on in the interview process," said Mikki Hebl, an associate professor of psychology at Rice University.

"That is, applicants acknowledging their physical disabilities at the beginning of an interview receive more favorable evaluations than do those who acknowledge their condition in the middle or at the end of an interview."

Hebl further points out that in an interview setting in which outcomes are based largely on first impressions, applicants' straight-forward immediate attention to their physical condition seems to be viewed more positively than if they wait until the middle or end of an interview, or don't acknowledge it at all.

"If the applicant doesn't acknowledge his or her physical disability, the interviewer might be guided by stereotypes and view the disabled individual as poorly adjusted, unhappy and incapable," Hebl said.

"However, acknowledgments directly lead to increased perceptions of well-adjustment, which directly lead to improved ratings from evaluators."

In a study titled "Acknowledging One's Physical Disability in the Interview: Does 'When' Make a Difference?" published in the Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Hebl and Jeanine Skorinko, a former Rice undergraduate and now a graduate student at the University of Virginia, present the first empirical demonstration that timing does make a difference regarding evaluators' impressions when physically disabled candidates acknowledge their condition.

The researchers found that applicants who disclosed their disability at the beginning or middle of the interview rather than at the end or not at all created more favorable impressions with evaluators, who tended to like and respect those candidates, indicated they would hire them and thought they would be intelligent workers. Applicants who acknowledged their disability at the beginning were considered to be better adjusted psychologically, and female evaluators, in particular, rated them as happier and more capable.

In a Web-based study, participants were asked to view eight-minute interviews, some of which included applicants who acknowledged their physical disabilities and others who did not refer to their condition. The prerecorded interviews were actually created using two men and two women who were paid to act the role of physically disabled individuals.

The actors answered 15 questions commonly asked during interviews, and they included a fabricated reference to their disability, explaining that it had been caused by an automobile accident. Following the videotapings, additional segments containing other references to the disabilities were inserted into the interviews using video-editing software. The segments were placed at the beginning, middle and end of the interviews, and in some cases, eliminated altogether.

The participants were told they were part of a study exploring the effectiveness of a workshop designed to improve the interviewing skills of physically disabled applicants. They were asked to rate the applicant and the way in which they referred to their disability if they acknowledged it.  

To measure the extent to which the participants felt the applicant would be an appropriate employee, they were asked to rate how well they liked the applicant, if they personally liked and felt positive regard for the individual, if they thought the person would make an intelligent employee and if they would hire the individual.

The researchers also measured different traits associated with stereotypes of physically disabled individuals by asking participants to evaluate how capable, hardworking, trustworthy, honest, talented and self-disciplined the disabled applicants might be.

Participants were also asked to describe the applicants' level of well-being based on the degree to which they viewed the applicant as self-accepting, honest and open about their disability and well-adjusted. They were also asked to indicate how sympathetic they felt toward the applicant.

Given that the vast majority of physically disabled job seekers report being unable to find employment, Hebl and Skorinko believe their finding helps to fill a void in the psychological research regarding disabled individuals.

"One of the main concerns of physically disabled individuals is deciding whether or not to acknowledge a stigmatizing condition during an interview," Hebl said.

"Our findings confirm that acknowledgment can be a successful strategy when job hunting, particularly when used at the initial stages of the interview process.

"Our research shows the success of acknowledgment results because it leads individuals to believe disabled individuals are well-adjusted."

An applied social psychologist, Hebl has conducted extensive research into the social psychology of stigma, particularly regarding obesity. Her work is widely published in several scholarly journals, including Personality and Social Psychological Review and Journal of Applied Social Psychology.

For more information on this research, contact Hebl at hebl@rice.edu or B.J. Almond in the Office of News and Media Relations at balmond@rice.edu.