title: Does individualism help explain differences in employers' stigmatizing attitudes toward disability across Chinese and American cities?
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Stigmatizing attitudes toward people with disabilities can jeopardize such individuals' well-being and recovery through denial of employment and community isolation. By shaping social norms that define group membership, the construct of individualism may partially explain differences in stigmatizing attitudes across cultures. Further, widespread globalization has brought intensely individualistic social practices to certain segments of non-Western cultures. This paper examines whether the construct of individualism can help to explain cross-cultural differences in stigmatizing attitudes observed between American and Chinese employers.
  
  
  METHODS
  Employers (N = 879) from Beijing, Hong Kong, and Chicago provided information on their attitudes toward hiring people with disabilities, and path analyses were conducted to examine potential mediating relationships.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Path analyses indicated that vertical individualism, along with perceived responsibility for acquiring a condition, partially mediated the relationship between culture and employers' negative attitudes about job candidates with disabilities.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  These results suggested that greater espousal of competitive and individualist values may drive stigmatizing attitudes across cultures.
authors.affiliation: Department of Global Health, University of Washington, 325 9th Ave., Seattle, WA 98104, USA. deeparao@uw.edu
authors.forename: Deepa
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Rao
authors.forename: Randall A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Horton
authors.forename: Hector W H
authors.initials: HW
authors.lastname: Tsang
authors.forename: Kan
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.forename: Patrick W
authors.initials: PW
authors.lastname: Corrigan
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002681:China; D003431:Cross-Cultural Comparison; D003466:Cultural Characteristics; D006233:Persons with Disabilities / Q000523:psychology* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D005260:Female; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D007206:Individuality; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010559:Personnel Management; D010560:Personnel Selection; D011287:Prejudice; D012050:Rehabilitation, Vocational / Q000523:psychology*; D012933:Social Identification; D012945:Social Values; D014481:United States