Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis.

Melvin L. Snyder, Robert E. Kleck, A. Christopher Strenta, Steven J. Mentzer·1979·Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
DOI 10.1037//0022-3514.37.12.2297

Abstract

We demonstrated a general strategy for detecting motives that people wish to conceal. The strategy consists of having people choose between two alternatives, one of which happens to satisfy the motive. By counterbalancing which one does so, it is possible to distill the motive by examining the pattern of choices that people make. The motive used in the demonstration is the desire we believe most people have to avoid the physically handicapped. Because they do not wish to reveal this desire, we predicted that they would be more likely to act on it if they could appear to choose on some other basis. In two studies we found that people avoided the handicapped more often if the decision to do so was also a decision between two movies and avoidance of the handicapped could masquerade as a movie preference.

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    Stone, Dianna L., Colella, Adrienne · 1996 · The Academy of Management Review

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1037//0022-3514.37.12.2297
The paper
Snyder, M. L., Kleck, R. E., Strenta, A. C., & Mentzer, S. J. (1979). Avoidance of the handicapped: An attributional ambiguity analysis. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037//0022-3514.37.12.2297

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