SOCIAL ACCEPTANCE BY THEIR PEERS OF CHILDREN WITH MENTAL-RETARDATION

Students' willingness to befriend a child with mental retardation was investigated using written vignettes of students said to be enrolling in the subjects' school. In the control condition, all stories describ ed the incoming students as non-labeled peers. In the experimental con dition, half of the descriptions of new classmates included the additi on of the label mentally retarded. Subjects were asked to make a behav ioral commitment to befriend an incoming student assuming that the chi ld would be joining their class. Chi-squared analysis indicated that t he addition of the label to a description of a child significantly red uced the frequency of that child's being selected by subjects, particu larly boys. The data suggested that the label may inhibit students' wi llingness to accept labeled peers socially.