The prototypical image of a successful negotiator is someone who is competent, confident, and in control — characteristics that are not always readily applied to disabled people. Two researchers wanted to understand if disabled people are more stigmatized in an intense job task, such as a potentially contentious, price-based negotiation. And if so, is this stigma more pronounced for women and/or those with an invisible disability? They had 2,000 people complete an online experiment where they read a transcript of a negotiation involving an employee named “Alex,” who they rated on integrity and competence. The experiment varied the presentation of Alex as a male or female, as well as with no disability, a visible disability (seated in a wheelchair), an invisible disability (described as episodic epilepsy), or an invisible disability (described as bipolar disorder). They found that those who saw Alex as male with a visible disability rated him as having more integrity and competence than any of the other versions — an effect that disappeared when Alex was a woman. When Alex was described as living with bipolar disorder, the male version was seen to have less integrity, while the female version was perceived as both having less integrity and seeming less competent. Their results speak to the extra burden of discrimination faced by those with mental health disabilities, especially for women who seem to face the “double bind” of the intersection of stigmatized categories.
