Article Correctness Is Author's Responsibility: Public- and self-stigma attached to physical versus psychological disabilities.

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Despite the research attention that has been paid to the public and self-stigma of mental illness, much less attention has been given to stigma and physical disabilities, particularly compared with psychological disabilities. Participants were 243 workers on Amazon's Mechanical Turk, an online crowd-sourcing tool, who completed measures of public stigma, self-stigma, stigma consciousness, as well as outcome measures of self-esteem, social anxiety, depression, and ostracism. Compared with physically disabled individuals, psychologically disabled participants reported significantly higher scores on public stigma, the awareness component of self-stigma, stigma consciousness, and all four outcome measures. Of particular import, however, is that persons with physical disabilities, though reporting lower levels of stigma than individuals with psychological disabilities, still evidenced both public and self-stigma. The results highlight the need for additional research examining stigma and physical disabilities, specifically, and research comparing these experiences with those of individuals with psychological disabilities. Implications of the findings for reducing stigma are discussed. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved)