Page 271 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

238
COLELLA AND STONE
Compassion can be defined as a sympathetic consciousness of another's
distress coupled with the desire to help (Lazarus & Lazarus, 1994). Some
synonyms for compassion include sympathy empathy and pity. Sympa­
thy is expressed as concern, understanding, or appreciation for the person
with the disability, whereas empathy is actually experiencing the same
emotion as the other. However, pity is often defined as feeling sorry for
the person with the disability Interestingly, pity is a more condescending
or disdainful feeling than compassion or empathy and is often coupled
with a view the person with the disability is inferior. Thus, people with
disabilities may be more likely to experience unfair discrimination in the
workplace when others view them with pity rather than with compassion.
Furthermore, pity is typically considered less acceptable in the American
culture than the other emotions of compassion, sympathy, or empathy.
Research has shown that individuals rationalize feelings of pity for per­
sons with disabilities in two ways. In particular, considerable research sug­
gests that when observers experience feelings of discomfort they avoid
contact and distance themselves from people with disabilities (cf. Stone
& Colella, 1996). In addition, observers distance themselves emotionally
from individuals with disabilities by dehumanizing the person (Stone et al.,
1992). For instance, when individuals observe unmerited or needless suf­
fering, it threatens their beliefs in a just world, and they infer that the
individual must be responsible for his or her problems (Lerner, 1980). It
merits noting that this rationalization process has been labeled the "just
world hypothesis" and suggests that suffering is always based on one's
conduct (Lerner, 1980). Not surprisingly, considerable research has shown
that observers react more negatively to persons with disabilities when they
perceive that the person caused the disability (e.g., paraplegia as a result of
a motorcycle accident) than when they did not (e.g., Bordieri & Drehmer,
1987; Bordieri, Drehmer, & Cominel, 1988).
Although little research has focused on the emotional responses of com­
passion and pity and treatment of people with disabilities, some research
has suggested that people vary in terms of empathy, and individuals higher
in empathy levels may feel more discomfort working with people with
disabilities than those lower in empathy levels (Cesare, Tannenbaum, &
Delessio, 1990). Furthermore, it has long been known that health care work­
ers distance themselves from patients' illnesses, but help them at same
time (Lazarus et al., 1980). Thus, the ability to distance oneself emotionally
from a disability may require both sensitivity and self-control and may
be an important determinant of reactions to persons with disabilities in
the workplace. As a result, organizations may want to train supervisors
and coworkers to distance themselves emotionally from an employee's
disability and focus on the individuals' abilities rather than their ability