Page 373 - Discrimination at Work The Psychological and Organizational Bases

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violated when an employer fails to reasonably accommodatea person with
a disability who, with or without the accommodation, can perform the es­
sential functions of the job. The model requires different treatment (con­
sidered preferential treatment by some) for persons having recognized
physical or mental impairments. Although this model relies on conscious
knowledge of the disability and requires consideration of the disability in
crafting accommodations and determining whether an individual who is
disabled can perform the job, it suffers from some of the same defects as
the other models. Knowledge of a person's disability can automatically
and unknowingly alter perceptions of the disabled person's ability to per­
form a job, with or without accommodation. In this manner, unconscious
prejudice and stereotyping can affect the judgments or behaviors of the em­
ployer. Both conscious and unconscious beliefs about the amount of effort
a person who is disabled will expend, for example, may cause an employer
to determine that there are no accommodations that will allow a worker
or applicant who is disabled to perform the job satisfactorily. Because the
reasonable accommodation model does not demand that persons who are
disabled be hired, only that they be treated equally with nondisabled per­
sons after reasonable accommodation is considered and/or granted, the
model may fail to produce the effect of helping persons who are disabled
move into the workplace. The efficacy of the model has not yet been de­
termined. OB/HR and behavioral science research generally should thor­
oughly study the role that bias and stereotypes play in decision making
about and evaluation of persons with disabilities in the workplace.
Research conducted in the rehabilitation field needs to be extended to
the organizational setting to understand the fate of employees who are
disabled in American workplaces. For example, what factors account for
how employees who are disabled are treated by supervisors and cowork­
ers? Does ingroup-outgroup analysis apply in the same way to persons
with disabilities as it does to other protected groups? What role does
stigmatization concerning disabilities play in the workplace and does it
differ for physical, sensory, and cognitive/mental disabilities? In partic­
ular, it appears that persons in wheelchairs are viewed much more sym­
pathetically than are persons having other disabilities (Colella, Paetzold,
& Ren, 2003). And which is more stigmatizing, the disability itself or the
accommodation for the disability? Social science knowledge pertaining
to these questions could add more nuanced understandings to the le­
gal system's view that hiring and accommodating persons who are dis­
abled will provide them with the same opportunities as others to be good
workers (ADA, 1990). Although as productive as nondisabled employees
when proper accommodation is granted (Baldwin & Johnson, 1998), em­
ployees who are disabled may encounter a variety of problems associated