Evaluations of mentally retarded persons: "sympathy" or patronization?

Subjects evaluated a hypothetical target person after reading a transcript of a bogus interview. The person was either labeled as retarded or was not labeled, and she was presented in a favorable or an unfavorable light. Subjects tended to evaluate the labeled (retarded) person more favorable than they did the nonretarded person on the adjective and social-distance questions, but only in the unfavorable condition. On a series of attribution questions, subjects assigned more responsibility for the retarded person's outcome to situational factors, regardless of how well she was doing. Consistent with this finding, subjects also reported less expectation of future success from the retarded person on various kinds of behavior. This evaluation pattern, of reduced blame after failure and less credit after success, was termed a patronization effect, and the implications of this kind of attitude were discussed.