Harold E. Yuker

Perceptions of Severely and Multiply Disabled Persons

Data from studies of rankings of acceptability and severity of various disabilities were converted to a common metric of percentile equivalent ranks. A total of 1331 data points from 53 studies yielded the following overall percentile equivalent ranks for 24 disabilities: diabetes (most acceptable), ulcer, arthritis, asthma, heart condition, speech problems, crippled, orthopedic disability, physical disability, amputation, emotional disturbance, appearance disability, deafness, learning disability, stroke, cancer, paraplegia, blindness, epilepsy, tuberculosis, cerebral palsy, mental retardation, mental illness, and multiple disabilities (least acceptable). Rankings of the severity of seven disabilities yielded a somewhat different order that correlated 0.55 with the total data. Rankings of a mild disability were, on average, 40 percentile points higher than rankings for the same disability labeled severe or profound.

Some Correlates of Job Satisfaction among Disabled Workers

Job satisfaction has been studied in many ways, as both a cause and an effect, as both an independent and a dependent variable. As an independent variable it has been assumed to be related to such measures of industrial performance as productivity, attendance, lateness, accident rate, and turnover. As a dependent variable, differences in job satisfaction have been correlated with such demographic variables as sex, age, intelligence, education, health, and various personality measures. It also has been studied in relation to several aspects of the job including type of work, pay, supervision, geographical location, size of plant, time on the job, etc. In these studies a great many different correlational patterns have been obtained. One reason for the diversity of results might be the use of different samples of workers in the various studies. Sayles(18), for example, demonstrated that work groups performing different kinds of tasks manifest different on-the-job needs and different patterns of job satisfaction. It is this variable that will be investigated in the present study, which will deal with the measurement of the correlates of job satisfaction among groups of disabled persons productively employed in industry. The question to be investigated here is to what extent do the correlates of job satisfaction in a group of disabled workers differ from correlates in a population of physically normal workers? Do disabled workers constitute a different population with regard to the variable of job satisfaction? The number of physically disabled persons employed by industrial organisations is steadily increasing as a .result of increasing knowledge concerning their abilities, and extensive public relations campaigns sponsored by both governmental and private organisations. Studies have shown that the disabled worker can be productive, punctual, safe and regular in attendance>20, 30). However, few studies have presented empirical evidence concerning the similarities or differences between the disabled and the physically normal worker. . The. present study will present data concerning factors related to job satisfaction for a sample of disabled persons working in an industrial setting. These relationships will be compared with those reported in other studies of job satisfaction where samples of physically normal workers were used. Job satisfaction will be treated neither as a dependent nor an independent variable, but rather its relationships with many other variables will be shown.