Children's willingness to share activities with a physically handicapped peer: am I more willing than my classmates?
OBJECTIVE
To examine factors affecting children's willingness to share activities with a peer presented as physically handicapped.


METHODS
Participants were 120 elementary school children randomly assigned to view a video of an ambulatory child or the same child in a wheelchair. They rated, on the Shared Activities Questionnaire (SAQ), their own willingness (SAQ-Self) and their perceptions of classmates' willingness (SAQ-Others) to participate in activities with the child.


RESULTS
SAQ-Self ratings were consistently higher for the peer in the wheelchair. On the SAQ-Others, differences favoring the child in the wheelchair disappeared, and ratings of this child were lower than SAQ-Self ratings. No interactions were found between ambulation status and age or rater gender or preference for type of shared activity.


CONCLUSIONS
Children showed highly positive intentions toward a peer in a wheelchair, but intentions attributed to classmates were less positive, which suggests "social desirability" influenced their own ratings.
Morgan
S B
SB
Department of Psychology, University of Memphis, Tennessee 38152, USA. s.morgan@mail.psyc.memphis.edu
Bieberich
A A
AA
Walker
M
M
Schwerdtfeger
H
H
D002648:Child; D019988:Children with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology*; D005163:Factor Analysis, Statistical; D005260:Female; D007722:Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010379:Peer Group; D011581:Psychological Tests; D012928:Social Desirability; D012938:Social Perception; D014741:Video Recording; D014743:Videotape Recording; D014910:Wheelchairs