STIGMA , AND PHYSICAL ACTIVITY IN CHILDREN : A REPLICA STUDY

Вовед: Стереотипите може да се намалат преку позитивни описи. Стигмата што работоспособните возрасни ја имаат кон децата со физичка попреченост може да се намали кога детето е претставено како активно. Студијата покажа дека спортски активно дете што користи инвалидска количка, се смета за поспособно од здраво дете кое се занимава со спорт. Цел: Оваа студија е реплика студија за поддршка на хипотезите и за испитување на стереотипи на работоспособните возрасни кон децата со и без (телесна) инвалидност. Методи: Оваа студија претставува две експериментални студии што користат 2 (физичка активност) x 2 (спортски активности). Зависните променливи беа перцепцијата на способностите и топлината според Моделот за содржина на стереотипите (МСС). Студијата 1 е онлајн експеримент со 355 студенти од Опен универзитетот на Хаген. Студијата 2 е анкета на 1176 учесници (од Минхен и Грац) со прашалник на хартија што се пополнува со молив. Резултати: Нашите студии не го докажаа значајниот ефект на интеракцијата. Introduction: Stereotypes can be reduced through positive descriptions. A stigma that able-bodied adults have towards children with physical disability can be reduced when the child is portrayed as being active. The study found out that a sporty active child, who uses a wheelchair, is perceived as more competent than the sporty active able-bodied child. Objective: This study is a replica study to support the hypotheses and to examine the stereotypes of able-bodied adults towards children with and without (physical) disabilities. Methods: This study presents two experimental replica studies using a 2 (physical activity) x 2 (sporty activities). The dependent variables were the perception of competencies and warmth according to Stereotype Content Model (SCM). Study 1 is an online experiment with 355 students of the Open University of Hagen. Study 2 surveys 1176 participants (from Munich and Graz) with a paper-pencil-questionnaire. Results: The significant interaction effect was not supported by our studies.

stereotypes interfere with the performance of their targets by inducing a self-evaluative threat, leading to a level of performance that is not commensurate with their true ability (6,7).Despite international developments towards inclusion in practice and in the field of education, perceptions towards children and adults with disabilities have changed significantly, many children are excluded and deprived of adequate education because of impairment and functional difficulties (8).When individuals are reminded of negative stereotypes about their abilities, they actively monitor the environment for cues suggesting that they will confirm the stereotype ( 9) and attempt to suppress negative thoughts and feelings of anxiety associated with the stereotype (10).Categorization attitudes refer to view a group of individuals as a homogenous group and to ignore individual differences (11).
These mixed stereotypes can be seen in the perceptions certain societal groups hold about people with physical disabilities.This type of disabilities are impairments which have a significant and long term effect on people's ability to execute daily activities; people with physical disabilities have problems with the structure or the functioning of their bodies.A moderate physical disability would have mobility problems (e.g.cannot manage stairs, need assistance to walk).Someone with a severe physical disability would be unable to walk and would be dependent on an external element (e.g.wheelchair) for mobility.People with disabilities were seen as warm but incompetent and have a mixed stereotype ( 12).An investigation by Louvet et al. ( 16) showed that French workers see their colleagues with physical disabilities as less competent, but they scored higher in the warmth dimension.Furthermore, the workers with disabilities have the same perception.Given the results, Louvet et al. ( 16) concluded that behind the high perception in the warmth dimension of people with physical disabilities, a compensation effect, also known as "fair process effect" was present.The high perception in the warmth dimension compensates the low perception in the competence dimension in the case of people with physical disabilities.This argument comes from the system-justice theory (17).Every group will be judged fairly, in a way that each group will be perceived with both positive and negative characteristics.
who have been, or not been, supplemented with a set of sporting activity.The results in the dimension warmth were lower in children without disabilities than in children with disabilities.Here, the results support the accepted image of the stereotype towards people with disabilities (12).In the dimension competence, Barg et al. ( 18) wanted to show similar high mean values between children with physical disabilities (who use a wheelchair) that are physically active and children without disabilities without information about their physical activity status and their sporty activity.The argument behind it was that sport activity slightly reduces stigma.In the dimension competence, the physically active child with a physical disability had the largest effect (d = 0.86) compared to the other students (d = 0.54-0.64).Barg et al. ( 18) concluded that the perception of the sporty person in a wheelchair is probably justified by the barriers this child must overcome.Therefore, a child with a physical disability has a higher competence when is active in sports, despite physical restrictions.

Research objectives
Студијата This effect occurs when a low evaluation in the dimension of competence is given to a person with a disability, and the participant would tend to rate this person with a higher score in the dimension of warmth.In order to control this compensation effect, we carried out two studies with the same instruments.In both studies the participants rated the described children in the vignettes in terms of the dimensions of the SCM, competence and warmth.In the first study, every participant got only one vignette of a child to rate and had no comparison to other children.In the second study, the participants rated all four vignettes and were able to compare all children.Our hypothesis is that the physically active children with physical disabilities will get the highest rank in competences, and students with physical disabilities will get a higher score in the warmth dimension than able-bodied students.wheelchair and had no other impairments; therefore, the child's disability was broadly described.In order to prevent impacting participants' rating of the target child, no additional information was included (i.e.nationality, hair color).

Методологија
The dimensions competence and warmth were measured with a 7-point Likert-Scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree).Perceived competence was assessed by having participants rate the child described in the vignette on seven items (confident, competitive, intelligent, independent, capable, efficient, and skillful (adapted from 12).In both study these items had a high internal consistency (α = 0.89 -0.93).Perceived warmth was assessed on seven items (warm, sympathetic, friendly, well-intentioned, trustworthy, good-natured and sincere (12).These items demonstrated a robust Cronbach's alpha with a high internal consistency in both studies being α = 0.92 -0.97.

Study 1
The study of Barg et al. ( 18) recruited a convenience sample of university students.The sample in study 1 is also a convenience sample of university of psychology students of the Open University of Hagen.The requirement was to have no disability.In Germany, all students of psychology must complete 30 hours of research participation.Filling this questionnaire gave them 1 hour.The questionnaire was online from 01 September until 06.October 2012.531 opened the questionnaire.355 participants took part completely in the online survey (www.soscisurvey.de).
No participant reported to having a disability.281 respondents and thus 79.2 percent of the total sample were women and 74 (20.8 percent) men.The mean age of respondents was 32.30 years (SD = 8.70).48.4 percent had jobs and also studied.Respondents were randomly assigned to one of four groups.Each group reviewed one student case in the dimensions of competence and warmth.These cases were adapted from the design by Barg et al. (18).Each of the 4 groups worked on only one student case, so that no interference could occur by another event or sequence effects.The analysis was carried out with analysis of variance.The results show that the main effects physical activity (F(1,351) = 101.03,p < 0.01, η 2 = 0.22) and ability status (F(1,351) = 29.07,p < 0.01, η 2 = 0.08) were significant on the dependent variable competence, but not the interaction term (F(1,351) =0.11, p = n.s.).The able-bodied active child (M = 26.39,SD = 4.38) got the highest scores compared to the able-bodied child without activity (M = 21.35,SD = 4.39), the active child with physical disability (M = 25.10,SD = 5.01) and the child with physical disability (M = 19.84,SD = 5.12) (see figure 1).These results do not support the findings of Barg et al. (18).If an interaction effect is expected, then the active child with physical disability should be perceived higher in the ratings than the physically active child without disabilities and the child with the physical disability without activity in the scale.).This does not correspond to the hypotheses that suggested that children with a disability should have been evaluated higher in the scale warmth.In this study, both findings of Barg et al. (18) were not confirmed.This could be influenced by the lack of compensation effect.In order to measure the effects more representatively, a second study was conducted including all four vignettes in one questionnaire; it was distributed in two different cities, resulting in a bigger sample.

Слика 1. Забележаните компетенции на децата со и без телесна попреченост, активните деца и децата за кои нема информација за нивната активност
Study 2 A convenience sampling comprised of a total of 1176 participants (702 females and 470 males) took part in the second study, 633 from the University of München and 543 from the University of Graz.The mean age of respondents was 26.60 years (SD = 11.00).Questionnaires were administered in a paperpencil form.The German sample consisted of students from the university; the sample in Austria consisted of thirds of pupils, students and working people.Respondents were randomly assigned to one of four groups.Each group reviewed all four student cases in another sequence in the dimensions of competence and warmth.The hypotheses were tested using a Repeated Measured ANOVA the 2 (activity status) x 2 (disability status) design, because every participant rated all student cases consecutively.The main effects for physical activity (F(1,1120) = 1344.39,p < 0.01, η 2 = 0.55) and ability status (F(1,1120) = 650.94,p < 0.01, η 2 = 0.37) were significant.On the dependent variable competence, the interaction term (F(1,1120) =185.03,p < 0.01, η 2 = 0.14) was significant as well.In a second Repeated Measured ANOVA the country variable was introduced as a control variable.But the country had no significant influence.Figure 2 shows the means of the pupils in the competence dimension.The ablebodied physically active child (M = 39.52,SD = на ученици во димензијата способност.Здравите физички активни деца (М = 39,52, СД = 6.94) добија највисока оценка во однос на здравите деца кои не се физички активни (М = 30,85, СД = 6.93), физички активни деца со физичка попреченост (M = 36,01, СД = 7.06), и дете со физичка попреченост (М = 29,42, СД = 7,48).Овие нови резултати (во однос на интеракција и ефект на надомест) ги предизвикуваат наодите во претходните студии (види 18, physical activity influences positively the perception of people towards exercisers and negatively non-exercisers; though our results do not reject the findings reported in other studies, the influence was not so clear to make the physically active child with a physical disability to be perceived more competent that the physically active child without a physical disability.(Martin Ginis & Leary, 2006).Moreover, our results were not in line with the ones reported in another study (22) which investigated the overweight stereotype in terms of athletic, artistic, academic, and social abilities and found the same more-warm-than-competent.Although their methodology was different, the study used the SCM as reference frame.In our studies, the children were evaluated within the same frame of reference in study one and study two.This implies that additional information about a child's sport activity itself influences the competence ratings of both groups of children to the same extent.Regarding the competence dimension, our results were closer to the results of Louvet et al. ( 16), in which French workers rated colleagues with disability more negatively than colleagues without disability in the competence scale.In the dimension warmth we hypothesized that, in case of a child with physical disabilities, the rated warmth would be higher compared with the able-bodied child, mainly because of a compensation effect.While participants perceived the children with physical disabilities lower in the competence dimension, they compensated this low perception by rating the children higher in the warmth dimension (18).However, our results disprove this hypothesis.Both studies showed that no significant differences in warmth exist between children with and without disabilities.Both groups of children were rated rather high.A small effect for the additional information about activity was found.On the other hand, this effect was the same for both groups of children, leading to the conclusion that there was no compensatory effect.These new results (regarding interaction and compensation effects) challenge the findings 21), во кои се тврди дека подобрувањето на способноста може да ја намали стигмата која е насочена кон лица со попреченост.Во рамките на теоретската рамка на ММС, децата со физичка попреченост имаат повисок рејтинг во димензијата ематијата (12), иако овој повисок рејтинг не е значаен.Една импликација што може да се извлече од нашите резултати е дека на МСС не е фиксен модел, со што спроведувањето на физичките активности за децата со попреченост, не може да резултира со намалување на стигмата кон нив.Ефекти на стигматизацијата се стабилни, но може да бидат под влијание на одредени описи на портретите.Според теоријата на системот на правдата (17) секој учесник се обиде да ја оцени секоја група на студенти праведно и легитимно.Но моделите зад овој рејтинг се пофлексибилни отколку што се претпоставуваше.Врз основа на ова, идните истражувања треба да ја испитаат стигматизацијата на експериментален дизајн со поблизок контекст.Тоа е важно за да се дознае како стигматизацијата функционира и како може да се намали, особено во случај на деца со попреченост, со оглед дека стереотипите за ниска способност не само што предизвикуваат дискриминација на различни начини, но, исто така, го одржуваат ова однесување и ја одобруваат социјалната нееднаквост (23).Еден предлог би бил да се оди во училиштата и да се анализира ММС и неговите негативни ефекти, како што беше направено во истражување за ставовите кон вклучување (24).Во студијата беше важно да се знае како да се интегрираат учениците и како стереотипите функционираат во контекст на училиштето.На пример, учениците со попречување се помалку прифатени од нивните врсници, имаат помалку интеракции и помалку пријатели (за преглед види на пример, 25).Но, интеракциите наставник-ученик може да влијаат на социјално прифаќање на учениците од своите врсници (26).Резултатите од овие студии покажаа дека може да се влијае на ефектите од стигматизација.Според тоа, од голема важност е да се најде под кои услови стигматизацијата води до негативни последици за ученици со попреченост и како наставниците може да влијаат и да се намалат овие ефекти на стигматизација.Интервенциите кои го in previous studies (see 18,21) in which has been argued that improving perceived competence may reduce the stigma that is directed toward individuals with disabilities.Within the theoretical framework of the SCM, children with a physical disability were found to have higher ratings of perceived warmth (12), although this higher rating was not significant.One implication that could be drawn from our results is that the SCM is not a fixed model, thus the implementation of physical activities for children with physical disabilities, may not result in reduced stigma towards them.The stigmatization effects are stable, but can be influenced by the specific description of the vignettes.According to the system-justice theory (17) every participant tried to rate every group of students fairly and legitimately.But the models behind this rating are more flexible than it was assumed.Based on this, future research should investigate the stigmatization in an experimental design with a closer context.It is important to find out how stigmatization works and how we can reduce it, especially in the case of children with disabilities, given that stereotypes of low competence not only trigger discrimination in diverse ways but also maintain these behaviors and approves social inequality (23).One suggestion would be to go into schools and analyze the SCM and its negative effects, as it was done in the research on attitudes towards inclusion (24).In the study, it was important to know how to integrate students and how stereotypes work in a school context.For instance, students with disabilities are less accepted by their peers, have fewer interactions and fewer friends (for an overview see e.g.25).But the teacher-student interactions can influence the social acceptance of students by their peers (26).The results of the present studies have shown that stigmatization effects can be influenced.Accordingly, it is of high importance to find out under which conditions stigmatizations lead to negative consequences for students with disabilities and how teachers can influence and reduce those stigmatization effects.Interventions fostering the social acceptance of students and reducing stigmatization effects should поттикнуваат социјалното прифаќање на учениците и ги намалуваат ефектите на стигматизацијата треба да се однесуваат на наставниците кои треба да се обучат за нивната интеракција со врсниците со попреченост.
address the teacher and train teachers in their interactions with disabled peers.
Authors declare no conflict of interests.

Figure 1 . 2
Figure 1.Perceived competence of children with and without physical disabilities, active children, and children where no activity information is provided

Слика 2 .Figure 2 .Слика 3 .Figure 3 .
Figure 2. Perceived competence of children with and without physical disabilities, active children, and children where no activity information is provided