Self-identifying as disabled could lead to pride, aid overall well-being

People who self-identify as "disable" are more likely to develop pride in their disability, a shift in thinking that can help build resilience and change public attitudes about the "disabled" label, according to two new studies led by researchers at Oregon State University (OSU).

"The challenge with disability as a label is that it's so mired in stigma that people don't want that label," noted Kathleen Bogart, an assistant professor of psychology in the OSU College of Liberal Arts. "Roughly 15 percent of the world's population has some kind of disability but just a fraction of those people actually identify themselves as people with disabilities."

Her research tries to answer questions: "Can we reduce the stigma and reframe the label as a neutral label that is just useful as a category, like male or female? Or taking it even further, can we shift the label to the point where people have pride in that label?"

Bogart and her collaborators explored issues around disability self-identification and disability pride in two studies published in the journal Rehabilitation Psychology.

In the first study, which tried to examine who is most likely to self-identify as disabled, about 700 people over age 18 completed an online survey that asked them to identify health conditions they had by checking boxes, or if their condition was not listed, filling in a box. Among the most common impairments were allergies, anxiety, depression, migraines, back injury or pain, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, respiratory disease, hypertension and chronic pain.

In addition, participants were asked to rate characteristics of their health condition, such as whether it affects daily life, how often it causes physical pain and how often it is noticeable to other people; to complete a questionnaire about whether they experienced stigma and discrimination because of their condition; and to answer whether they identify as a person with a disability.