Employment expectations as a differential indicator of attitudes toward people with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus

The article describes an empirical investigation of prospective rehabilitation counselors' (n = 46) employment-relevant attitudes toward people with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Participants were matched into pairs based on similarities in age, gender, familiarity with diabetes mellitus and whether they had taken graduate coursework in medical information. They were then randomly assigned to two groups. One group was asked to read a profile of a fictitious job applicant whose disability status was not mentioned and evaluate the applicant's credentials using the Employment Expectations Questionnaire (EEQ). The other group read and evaluated the packet in the same fashion, but the applicant was described as having insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus. Results indicated that the diabetes label had no significant effect on participants' ratings of the job applicant, indicating that ratings were formulated without respect to the illness.