Photographs of children with Down syndrome elicit less positive attitudes than photographs of typically developing children do, reports new research published Apr. 4 in the open access journal PLoS ONE. This effect was strongest for photographs of children with features that are "strongly typical" of Down syndrome, and somewhat weaker for images that were more "weakly typical."
Although photographs of children with Down syndrome are typically viewed as more positive ("friendly" and "affectionate") than negative ("stupid"), the results of this study reveal underlying stereotypes and negative attitudes about people with Down syndrome at an implicit level, the authors write.
This negative bias is observed even among professional caregivers working with intellectually disabled persons. The work was led by Claire Enea-Drapeau of Aix-Marseille Univ. and Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Laboratoire de Psychologie Cognitive, Fédération de Recherche 3C: Comportement-Cerveau-Cognition, Marseille, France.
Citation: Enea-Drapeau C, Carlier M, Huguet P (2012) Tracking Subtle Stereotypes of Children with Trisomy 21: From Facial-Feature-Based to Implicit Stereotyping. PLoS ONE 7(4): e34369. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0034369
Financial Disclosure: Support for this research was provided by Aix-Marseille University, the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, and the ''Fondation Je´roˆme Lejeune'' (France). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
Competing Interest Statement: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
Disclaimer: This press release refers to upcoming articles in PLoS ONE. The releases have been provided by the article authors and/or journal staff. Any opinions expressed in these are the personal views of the contributors, and do not necessarily represent the views or policies of PLoS. PLoS expressly disclaims any and all warranties and liability in connection with the information found in the release and article and your use of such information.
About PLoS ONE
PLoS ONE is the first journal of primary research from all areas of science to employ a combination of peer review and post-publication rating and commenting, to maximize the impact of every report it publishes. PLoS ONE is published by the Public Library of Science (PLoS), the open-access publisher whose goal is to make the world's scientific and medical literature a public resource.
All works published in PLoS ONE are Open Access. Everything is immediately available—to read, download, redistribute, include in databases and otherwise use—without cost to anyone, anywhere, subject only to the condition that the original authors and source are properly attributed. For more information about PLoS ONE relevant to journalists, bloggers and press officers, including details of our press release process and our embargo policy, see the everyONE blog at http://everyone.plos.org/media.
Journal
PLoS ONE