Increasing Positive Perception of Disability Through Depictions of Animals with Disabilities

TL;DR: This research was conducted to determine how workers could change the negative perspective of disabled animals for the public. The findings indicate that there are ways to do this and show which is most effective.

Key terms: 

• Contact theory

• Transfer Theory

• Ableism

• Speciesism

Introduction 

Zoos and aquariums care for many injured or disabled animals, but workers struggle with connecting the animals with the visitors, who often express neutral or negative attitudes. Disability scholars and zoo professionals worked to reduce disability stigma and encourage emotional connection between these animals and the public. 

Background and Theory 

There are two theories named the contact theory and the transfer theory. 

• The contact theory says that interacting more with a person or group can turn negative views to accepting ones.

• Transfer theory adds that if someone has a positive experience in one situation, their positive emotions can transfer into other areas of their life. This means that if researchers find ways to make animal disability more accepted, human disability will too. 

Ableism and speciesism are both forms of oppression based on judgement. 

• Ableism is the devaluation of something based on their disability.

• Speciesism is the belief that humans are inherently valued greater than animals. 

These beliefs work together to create the harmful idea that euthanizing disabled animals can be normalized. This project works in the intersection of these two correlated beliefs. 

Materials, Methods, and Results 

Researchers explored how general stories about animals with disabilities can leave a positive impact on human minds, so the researchers made three different exhibition signs: no sign, detailed sign, and a simple, brief sign. These were the responses of the public: having no signs made visitors think the zoo was making animals suffer, having a detailed sign only encouraged pity, and the simple sign left positive responses. They observed the number of people who visited the exhibit, whether the first comment was about the disability or not, and if the comment was positive, negative, or neutral. 

Another exploration was an online survey for a thousand participants. The result was analyzed by people viewing short stories or photos of animals with disabilities. People who saw simple pictures showed no major sign, but people who saw the suffering and disability these animals have seemed to treat humans with disabilities more comfortably. These studies finalize how stories about animals can reduce disability stigma for both animals and humans.

Limitations and Future Opportunities 

There are some limitations and future opportunities of research with the project. Limitations include species of animals, types of disabilities, and the fact that the data collection was a single point, giving no knowledge about long-term impacts. There are still future opportunities for research based on this project, including observing reactions for less visible disabilities, looking at perceptions at many different points in time to analyze long-term impacts, and testing signage types on the same animal.

Summary: 

These series of experiments concluded that there are in fact ways to positively change the public’s perception of disabled animals, such as using brief signs in exhibits and sharing the stories of the animal’s backstory through short stories/photos. Accepting disabled animals in our society can also connect and help with the issue of disabled human negativity as well.

It is highly recommended to continue research and experiments of this cause, especially to monitor long-term changes.

Simplified by Allison Kim and Danna Kim