the relationship between personality and peers’ judgments of the appropriateness of accommodations...

The Relationship Between Personality and Peers’ Judgments of the Appropriateness of Accommodations

for Individuals With Disabilities’

MARiA FERNANDA GARCiA2 Department of Marketing

and hfanugernent Universih. of Texas af El Paso

RAMONA L. PAETZOLDD Department of Management

Te.sa.7 A & M Universih

ADRIENNE COLELLA Freeman School of Business

Tulune Universih

The purpose of this research was to provide a preliminary evaluation of how the personality characteristics of peers, as defined by the 5-factor model of personality, explained their judgments of the appropriateness of accommodations given to disabled persons. We hypothesized that both agreeableness and openness to experience would be related positively to judgments of appropriateness and that conscientiousness would be related negatively. We also hypothesized that personality dimensions would interact with disability and accommodation types in determining judgments of appropriateness. We obtained par- tial support for our hypotheses in that the interactions of Disability x Accommodation x

Agreeablencss as wcll as Disability x Accommodation x Openness to Experience were significant, although thc personality dimensions themselves did not produce significant rcsults.

In 1999, there were almost 5 million disabled workers in the United States (U.S. Bureau of the Census, 2000), each potentially with the right to ask for an accommodation under 1990’s Americans With Disabilities Act (ADA). This figure may explain the reason why the accommodation of disabled people has become a topic of great interest for management researchers. Lee and Newman ( 1995) and Cleveland, Barnes-Farrell, and Ratz ( 1997) have examined the management of the accommodation process. Florey and Harrison (2000) analyzed perceptions of managers with regard to disability and accommodation. Mean- while, Colella and colleagues (Colella, 2001; Colella & Goparaju, 1999; Colella,

’The authors thank the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments on this article. The first and third authors were at Texas A&M University when this article was accepted for publication.

‘Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Maria Fernanda Garcia. Depart- ment of Marketing and Management, University of Texas at El Paso, El Paso. TX 79968. E-mail: [email protected]

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Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 2005, 35, 7, pp. 1418-1439. Copyright [C) 2005 by V. H. Winston & Son, Inc. All rights reserved.

PERSONALITY AND APPROPRIATENESS OF ACCOMMODATIONS 141 9

Paetzold, & Belliveau, 2004; Paetzold, Garcia, & Colella, 2005) have studied fairness perceptions of coworkers when a disabled member of the work team is accommodated. One aspect of the accommodation issue that remains almost unexplored is how the personality of peers impacts their perceptions of the appropriateness of accommodations.

The purpose of the present research is to provide a preliminary analysis of how the personality characteristics of peers, as defined by the five-factor model (Costa & McCrae, 1985, 1992; Goldberg, 1990, 1992), explain their perceptions of the appropriateness of accommodations offered to disabled persons. Others (Colella, 2001; Stone & Colella, 1996) have proposed that a peer’s personality influences how he or she reacts to persons with disabilities. However, this has never been tested empirically in an accommodation scenario. Drawing from the Big Five literature, we hypothesize that agreeableness, conscientious, and openness to experience are important personality traits in peers’ judgments of the appropriateness of accommodations for disabled people.3 Our underlying assumption is that an individual’s personality partially predicts his or her behavioral intentions (Azjen, 1985; Triandis & Davis, 1965), which in turn predicts his or her behavior (Azjen & Fishbein, 1977; Fredricks & Dossett, 1983).

It is critical to understand how people react to accommodation. Appropriate- ness judgments are one factor that may influence the way peers evaluate accommodations for disabled people. Peer judgments are particularly important to consider because peers are important stakeholders in the accommodation process. Their reactions may influence the successful implementation of an accommodation, may have an impact on the person entitled to accommodation, and may be one factor supervisors consider when deciding whether or not to grant an accommodation (Colella, 2001). Thus, an understanding of peers’ reactions to the appropriateness of accommodations may contribute to the reduction of barriers for disabled persons.

Personality and Judgments of Appropriateness of Accommodations

The five-factor model (Barrick & Mount, 1991; Costa & McCrae, 1988; Goldberg, 1990, 1992) provides a comprehensive framework from which to examine personality and its relationships to judgments of appropriateness of accommodations that are made for disabled persons. The model is defined by the dimensions of (a) extraversion (being sociable, talkative, assertive, active); (b) agreeableness (being altruistic, concerned about others’ welfare, good- natured, cooperative); (c) conscientiousness (being responsible, dependable,

3We also examined neuroticism and extraversion, but found no effects related to them. Because we did not expect any significant effects, we do not include these analyses. The analyses are available upon request from the first author.

1420 GARCiA ET AL.

planful, organized, persistent, achievement-oriented); (d) neuroticism (the oppo- site of being calm, secure, and emotionally stable); and (e) openness to experience (being open-minded, curious, imaginative, intellectual). These five factors have been shown to be robust by longitudinal and across-observer studies in different age, sex, race, and language groups, as well as across different theoretical perspectives (Barrick & Mount, 1993). Although the five-factor model is not without its critics (e.g., Block, 1995), it has gained widespread international acceptance (Saucier & Goldberg, 1998).

Of particular interest are the factors of agreeableness, conscientiousness, and openness to experience, as related to judgments of the appropriateness of disability-related accommodations, because these dimensions seem to have the most direct link between their characteristics and those that relate to consideration of the appropriateness of accommodation as will be discussed. The relationship between personality and accommodation appropriateness cannot be studied in a vacuum, however. Determinations of the appropriateness of an accommodation must also depend on the nature of the disability and the type of accommodation made for it. In particular, the nature of a disability is an important factor in determining how disabled persons will be viewed and treated within an organization.

Attribution theory (Kelley, 1967) tells us that peers may try to explain causes for the granting of an accommodation. If the disability of the person who is granted the accommodation is invisible, as mental disabilities often are, there is more room for peers to think that the person faked the disability, which could be viewed as deceptive and can lead to negative affect and cognitions associated with the disability. Some disabilities-including hidden, mental, and threatening ones-give rise to more negative feelings on the part of peers and can lead to the perception of an accommodation as unfair (Colella, 2001; Harasymiw, Horne, & Lewis, 1976; Stone & Colella, 1996). West and Cardy (1997) posited that less visible disabilities create more uncertainty for managers than do more apparent disabilities, suggesting that managers are more likely to perceive requested accommodations as reasonable when the need for the accommodation is attribut- able to a clear disability. Lee and Thompson (1 998) also indicated that employers are more likely to hire or retain workers with physical disabilities than those with other, less visible disabilities. Thus, hypothesis development also should consider the nature of the disability.

Similarly, the type of accommodation is an important factor that can impact on judgments of appropriateness. Lee (1996) proposed that both the cost of the accommodation and any perceived disruption by the accommodation might influence the feasibility of accommodating an employee. Florey and Harrison (2000) found that the magnitude of a requested accommodation will be related negatively to psychological reactions to that request. Justice theory, based on equity rules, is used in the disability literature to explain accommodation judgments by peers (Colella, 2001; Paetzold et al., 2003). Under an equity rule, factors such as

PERSONALITY AND APPROPRIATENESS OF ACCOMMODATIONS 1421

whether accommodations make the work easier for the disabled employee, whether they increase the level of peers’ input, whether they increase the level of rewards of the disabled worker, and whether they reduce the level of rewards or outcomes for the peers are associated with peers’ negative perceptions of the fairness of accommodations. Thus, the type of accommodation also must be considered when developing hypotheses.

We would expect disability type, accommodation type, and their interaction to play significant roles in appropriateness ratings, but we do not hypothesize about them separately because our focus is on personality. We now turn to the personality dimensions of interest and develop hypotheses concerning their nature and the appropriateness of accommodations for disabilities.

Agreeableness

The essence of an agreeable person is concern about the well-being of others. Agreeable people are helpful, friendly, warm, trusting, and tolerant (Barrick, Neubert, Mount, & Stewart, 1998), as well as selfless and flexible (Barrick & Mount, 1993). A primary motivation of agreeable people is altruism (Judge & Bono, 2000). Jensen-Campbell and Graziano (2001) stated that compared to the other personality dimensions, agreeableness is related to motives for maintaining positive interpersonal relations. Agreeable people may minimize the negative impact of conflicts and negotiate outcomes that capitalize on the advantages of group living. Agreeableness also is linked to temperamental bases of effortful control, specifically the regulation of anger, possibly because agreeable people are motivated to maintain positive relations with other people. This motivation induces agreeable people to generate positive perceptions and attributions to what otherwise would be considered provocative behavior.

Accommodation for a disabled person provides an opportunity for the agreeable person to demonstrate concern with that peer’s specific conditions and needs. The ability to generate positive perceptions and attributions about the giving of the accommodation would help agreeable persons to see the accommodation in a positive light, one that would be expected to influence judgments positively of the importance of the accommodation to the disabled individual receiving it. Positive judgments also could be viewed as promoting workplace harmony. Altruistic concerns for others’ interests should prevail over feelings of resentment. Based on these arguments, it is reasonable to expect that the more agreeable the person, the more positive his or her judgment will be of the appropriateness of disability- related accommodations. Therefore, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis I . Persons high in agreeableness will judge the accommodation of individuals with disabilities to be more appropriate than will persons who are low in agreeableness.

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Because agreeable people are more accepting of individual differences (Havill, Besevegis, & Mouroussaki, 1998) and are concerned about the welfare of others, the agreeable person may be seen as one who focuses on how to maximize positive outcomes (i.e., provide useful accommodations) for people whose individual needs vary (as a function of a disability). Therefore, we would expect this personality dimension to interact with disability and accommodation such that, for persons high in agreeableness, disability-accommodation pairs4 that allow disabled people to be more similar in ability to others may be viewed as more appropriate than they would be for persons low in agreeableness. For instance, if a person with diabetes is granted more time to finish a project because of recurrent absences to visit the hospital, peers high in agreeableness may judge that disability-accommodation pair as more appropriate than peers low in agreeableness. Accommodations that are not viewed as likely to facilitate success for persons with a particular disability (e.g., providing a reader to a person confined to a wheelchair) should not be judged as appropriate, regardless of level of agreeableness. Thus, we propose the following:

Hypothesis 2. There will be an interaction between agreeableness and disability-accommodation pairs such that the difference between persons high in agreeableness and low in agreeableness will be greater for disability-accommodation pairs facilitating task performance than for other such pairs.

Conscientiousness

Barrick, Mount, and Straws (I 993) defined high conscientious individuals as those who are planful, organized, and purposeful, with these characteristics leading to goal setting (i.e., a choice to expend effort). These individuals are also achievement-oriented, hardworking, and have high expectations of themselves, which causes them to set more difficult goals (i.e., a choice of level of effort to expend). They are also responsible, dependable, persistent, and likely to accomplish or try to accomplish what is expected of them, which provides a higher commitment to achieving their goals (Barrick et al., 1993). In sum, conscientiousness is related to whether or not an individual sets goals and the way he or she sets those goals.

In addition, conscientiousness is a valid predictor of performance for all occupational groups. Persons who are responsible, dependable, persistent, and

4Disability is defined as an impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activity and includes a record of such impairment or being regarded as having such an impairment (ADA, 1990). Accommodufion refers to any reasonable adjustment in the workplace that allows the person to perform at full capacity (ADA, 1990). A di~abiliry-accornrnoion pair is defined as the combina- tion of a specific type of disability with a specific type of accommodation.


achievement-oriented (i.e., high in conscientiousness) generally perform better than those who are not (Barrick & Mount, 1991, 1993). Conscientious people also are characterized as persons having personal competence, self-control, duti- fulness, self-discipline, and deliberation (Judge, Martocchio, & Thoresen, 1997).

Because of these characteristics, conscientious individuals may judge the appropriateness of accommodations for disabled persons negatively because these accommodations may negatively impact their goal achievement and threaten their desired outcomes. For instance, when a disabled person is allowed to work from home 2 or 3 days per week, communication difficulties may occur in the workplace (Duxbury, Higgins, & Neufeuld, 1998; Sparrow & Daniels, 1999) that could interfere with the conscientious person’s work. Similarly, a disabled person who is allowed flexible time in order to receive a medical treatment may seem to the highly conscientious to generate inordinate problems in the daily work routine of others (cf. Foster v. Time Warner Entertainment Co., 2001).

Even accommodations that seem to be unrelated to peers’ outcomes may be problematic for conscientious individuals. For example, a person who has a visual impairment may request a larger screen for the computer. Conscientious individuals may perceive the appropriateness of a larger screen negatively because it implies that the distribution of resources (in this case, money to buy the screen) is not used for the achievement of their own goals. I f goals and desired performance levels are measured in comparison to referent others, disability-related accommodations are particularly problematic because they may render the disabled individual more competitive with regard to job success. Thus, we can expect highly conscientious individuals to judge the appropriateness of an accommodation negatively. We posit both of the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 3. Persons high in conscientiousness will judge the accommodation of individuals with disabilities to be less appropriate than will persons who are low in conscientiousness.

Hypothesis 4 . There will be an interaction between conscientiousness and disability-accommodation pairs such that the difference between persons high in conscientiousness and low in conscientiousness will be greater for accommodations for the disabled that can be seen as valuable resources or more facilitative of task performance than for other such disability-accommodation pairs.

Openness to Experience

Individuals who score high in openness to experience are open-minded and tolerant, and have divergent thinking and creativity, as well as being intelligent, perceptive, imaginative, cultured, inquisitive, and curious (Judge & Bono, 2000;

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Judge, Thoresen, Pucik, & Welbourne, 1999; Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000). Most importantly, persons high in openness to experience are better able to understand and adapt to others’ perspectives (Judge & Bono, 2000). These qualities all suggest that openness to experience should lead to positive judgments about the appropriateness of disability-related accommodations. Tolerance and open-mindedness suggest a lack of negativity in judgment, and a sense of creativity could assist in viewing a variety of accommodations as useful-even essential-for allowing disabled workers to be productive. Empathy and positive framing (Wanberg & Kammeyer-Mueller, 2000) also would permit those high in openness to experience to view accommodations in a positive light. Thus, we hypothesize the following:

Hypothesis 5. Persons high in openness to experience will judge the accommodation of individuals with disabilities to be more appropriate than will persons who are low in openness to experience.

Persons who are high in openness to experience should respond well to novel situations because of their creative and open-minded characteristics. The accommodation of disabilities provides one such novel situation, particularly when disabled persons are “recreated” by being given accommodations that provide them with enhanced task performance. Thus, the following is proposed:

Hypothesis 6. There will be an interaction between openness to experience and disability-accommodation pairs such that the difference between persons high in openness to experience and low in openness to experience will be greater for disability- accommodation pairs facilitating task performance for the disabled person than for other disability-accommodation pairs.

Method

Participants and Procedure

We administered an instrument designed to assess judgments of the appropriateness of disability-accommodation combinations to a sample of business students from a large southwestern university. The modal age of the participants was 20 years, with 56.1 % of the participants being women, 87.7% being White, 6.1 % having a disability, and 98.25% having some form of work experience. Students earned extra credit for participating in the study. From an initial sample size of 116, two surveys were discarded as a result of coding problems. There- fore, the total number of study participants was 114.

To determine if participants were representative of the larger population of students, we compared their race and sex with that of the population of


undergraduate students, as indicated by official university records. The participant and population statistics differed only slightly (i.e., 87.7% of participants were White, as compared with 8 1.5% for the population; 56.1 % of the participants were women, compared to 48.7% for the population).

Measures

Judgments of the appropriateness of accommodation. We measured judgments of appropriateness of accommodation by asking participants to respond to a set of six questions on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 (not appropriate at all) to 5 (very appropriate). These questions reflected six accommodations and were stated as follows: (a) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to be allowed to take the test in a quiet room, separate from the classroom?”; (b) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to be allowed to leave the room during the test?”; (c) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to be allowed to take the test at home?”; (d) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to be allowed extended time on the test?”; (e) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to have the test read to them or to take it orally?”; and (f) “To what extent is it appropriate for a fellow student with each of the following disabilities to take only a portion of the test?’

These questions were designed to be both salient and relevant in a university environment, since our participants were college students. Below each of these six questions was a list of 17 disabilities (low back pain, dyslexiaAearning disorder, paraplegia, depression, facial burns, arm amputation, severe visual impairment/blindness, cerebral palsy, epilepsy, attention deficit disorder (ADD), leg amputation, deafnesdhard of hearing, chronic back pain, cancer, schizophrenia, asthma, and acute anxiety) that we selected because they represented a range of physical, mental, and cognitive disabilities that are relatively common to the university setting. Each participant provided 17 appropriateness judgments, one for each disability-accommodation pair, in a within-subjects design.

Although we used 17 disabilities to maximize the possibilities for student familiarity, our interest was in disability categories, as is common in disability research (e.g., Christman & Slaten, 1991; Hazer & Bedell, 2000; Paetzold et al., 2003 j. In order to explore the role that type of disability and type of accommodation play in judgments about appropriateness, we first aggregated the individual disabilities into three categories: physical (acute low back pain, paraplegia, facial bums, arm amputation, visual impairmenthlindness, cerebral palsy, leg amputation, deafnesdhard of hearing, chronic back pain, cancer, asthma, epilepsy), mental (depression, schizophrenia, acute anxiety), and learning (dyslexiaAearning

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disorder, ADD). These three categories of disabilities are generally accepted and reIevant to understanding the type of disability.

On the other hand, accommodations were highly distinct in the ways they could relate to the categories of disabilities. They were selected because they differed along a variety of dimensions, including facilitativeness of productivity for different disabilities, possibilities for cheating. and desirability to others not receiving them. Therefore, we did not aggregate the accommodations, and we considered all six of them separately. We did identify particular accommodations in advance that we thought would be better suited to some of the disabilities. In particular, we identified leaving the room as more facilitative than the other accommodations for physical disabilities (primarily influenced by back pain); leaving the room and having more time as more facilitative than other accommodations for mental disabilities; and having more time, having the exam read to the student, and having to complete only a portion of the exam as being more facilitative for the learning disorders. Two independent raters made this determination, with interrater agreement at 100%.

Big Five personality dimensions. We measured personality with the five- factor model as specified by Goldberg’s (1990, 1992) scale of 50 items. Partici- pants in the survey responded on a 9-point scale ranging from 1 (extremely inaccurate) to 9 (extremely accurate). Cronbach’s alphas for this instrument were as follows: extraversion, a = 3 5 ; neuroticism, a = 38; conscientiousness, a = .84; openness to experience, a = .78; and agreeableness, a = .84. Each of the personality dimensions was made categorical using the median-split technique so that persons high and low on the dimension could be used to test the hypotheses.

Results

We conducted three separate MANOVAs (Tables 1, 2, and 3), with disability and accommodation as within-subjects factors and each of the three personality dimensions as between-subjects factors. We analyzed each personality dimension separately because they are conceptually orthogonal and correlations among them were relatively low, thereby rendering a multiple MANOVA inappropriate (Tabachnick & Fidell, 2001). For each of these MANOVAs, disability, accommodation, and the interaction of Disability x Accommodation were significant, as expected (Tables 1,2, and 3), indicating that appropriateness judgments always depend on the nature of the disabilities and accommodations presented, regardless of personality dimension.

To test Hypothesis 1, we examined the agreeableness analysis. As indicated in Table 1 , at the alpha level of .05, agreeableness was not significant, F( 1,92) =

2.62, p > .05. However, the three-way interaction of Disability x Accommo- dation x Agreeableness was statistically significant, F( 10, 83) = 2.83, p = .OO


Table 1

MAN0 VA for Agreeableness

Source df F P Between subjects

Agreeableness (AG) 1 2.62** .17 .10 AG within-group error 92 (15.42)

Disability (D) 2 43.42** .70 .OO Accommodation (A) 5 54.92** .87 .OO A x D 10 25.55** .87 .OO D x A G 2 0.36 .09 .69 A x A G 5 1.56 .28 . I 8 A x D x A G 10 2.83** S O .OO A x D x AG within-group error 92 (2.87)

Within subjects

Note, Values enclosed in parentheses represent mean square errors. **p < .01.

Table 2

MANOVA for Conscientiousness

Source df F rl P Between subjects

Conscientiousness (C) 1 0.84 .09 .36 C within-group error 92 (5.03)

Disability (D) 2 44.45** .70 .OO Accommodation (A) 5 55.34** .87 .OO A x D 10 25.24** .87 .OO D x C 2 0.85 .14 .43 A x C 5 1.09 .24 .37 A x D x C 10 0.56 .25 .84 A x D x C within-group error 92 (2.92)

Within subjects

Note. Values enclosed in parentheses represent mean square errors. **p < .01.

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Table 3

MANOVA for Openness to Experience

Source df F r P Between subjects

Openness 1 0.85 .09 .36 0 within-group error 92 (5.11)

Disability (D) 2 44.40** .70 .OO Accommodation (A) 5 55.08** .87 .OO A x D 10 28.92** .88 .OO D x O 2 1.16 .16 .32 A x 0 5 0.60 .18 .69 A x D x O 10 2.09* .45 .04 A x D x 0 within-group error 92 (2.88)

Within subjects

Note. Values enclosed in parentheses represent mean square errors. *p < .05. **p < .01.

(q = S O ) , indicating that agreeableness is a significant dimension to understanding appropriateness ratings when disability-accommodation pairs are considered. Persons high in agreeableness rated pairs that could be seen as enhancing the ability of the disabled person to perform as more appropriate than did persons who were low in agreeableness, as indicated in Table 4. For example, statistical significance was represented in the mean difference in appropriateness between high agreeables and low agreeables for allowing mentally disabled persons to have more time (Mdiff. = 0 . 6 3 , ~ < .001) and for allowing them to leave the room (M,~E, = 0.37, p < .05). For learning disorders, high and low agreeables differed in appropriateness ratings for having the test read to the disabled person (M& =

0.47, p < .05). According to our predictions, none of the other disability- accommodation pairs represented situations where the accommodation could be said to strongly and directly facilitate the disability as a class. Thus, Hypothesis 2 was supported.

Hypothesis 3 was not supported because conscientiousness was not significant (Table 2). There was no significant Conscientiousness x Accommodation interaction, and the three-way interaction for conscientiousness, accommodation, and disability was not significant, so Hypothesis 4 was not supported. Conscien- tiousness, therefore did not appear to influence appropriateness judgments about accommodating disabilities.


Table 4

Cell Means for Agreeableness

Level of agreeableness

Accommodatioddisability High Low

Quiet room Physical Mental Learning

Leave the room Physical Mental Learning

Physical Mental Learning

More time Physical Mental Learning

Readoral Physical Mental Learning

Portion of test Physical Mental

Home

2.76 2.72 3.77

2.41 2.73, 2.33

2.02 1.94 1.75

2.41 2.61, 3.65

2.05 1.66 3.18,

1.47 1.53

Learning 2.04 Note. Means in the same row with different subscripts differ atp < .05.

2.61 2.70 3.72

2.27 2.361, 2.21

1.92 1.74 1.69

2.13 1.981, 3.44

1.86 1.69 2.711,

1.44 1.42 1.78

The results for openness to experience are similar to those for agreeableness (Table 3). Notably, there were no significant results for the openness personality dimension; thus, Hypothesis 5 was not supported. There was a significant three-way interaction for openness, disability, and accommodation, however,

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Table 5

Cell Means,fov Openness to Experience

Level of openness to experience

Accommodatioddisability High Low Quiet room


Leave the room Physical Mental Learning




Portion of test Physical Mental Learning

Home

More time

Readoral

2.68 2.73 3.70

2.70 2.69 3.79

2.33 2.36 2.70 2.42 2.28 2.27

1.95 2.00 1.84 1.70

1.86 1.75

2.32 2.24 2.34 2.28 3.75, 3.361,

1.99 1.93 1.59 1.76 3.15, 2.77b

1.49 1.43 1.61 1.39 2.09 1.75

Note. Means in the same row with different subscripts differ atp < .05.

F( 10, 83) = 2.09, p = .04 (q = .45). An examination of cell means (Table 5) reveals that the significant differences (between those high and low on openness to experience) leading to the significant three-way interaction occurred once again for learning disabilities (more time, M = 0 . 3 9 , ~ i .05; having the test


read to the person, M = 0.38, p < .05). Again, this was a set of disability- accommodation pairs that could be viewed as most facilitative for test performance, as we had determined a priori. Therefore, Hypothesis 6 was supported.

Discussion

A full comparison of cell means across disability-accommodation pairs and personality dimensions reveals interesting patterns and problems in the data. First, there were obvious “strong situations” in the disability-accommodation pairs for which personality played no role. For example, having a quiet room was viewed as highly appropriate across all three types of disabilities. Similarly, per- forming the test at home was viewed as inappropriate across all three types of disabilities. These two accommodations, therefore, did not allow personality differences to emerge in the judgments of appropriateness for disability- accommodation pairs, and could be viewed as accounting for the lack of significant results for personality.

After eliminating these strong situations from consideration, however, the role of personality became apparent. For both agreeableness and openness to experience, there were clear differences between highs and lows in the appropriateness judgments for accommodations that strongly facilitated particular disability types. This was particularly easy to see for the learning disability category, which consisted of dyslexia and ADD. For both of these disorders, the nature of the impairment tends to be the same: Afflicted persons read more slowly, engage in slower cognitive processing, and thus would complete a test at a slower pace. Accommodations that would tend to assist with reading or in other ways com- pensate for resulting problems with time to complete the test would be highly facilitative for these disabilities. Persons high in both agreeableness and openness to experience saw having the test read to the disabled person as more appropriate than did persons low on those personality dimensions. In addition, persons high on openness to experience saw providing more time to the person as a more appropriate accommodation than did persons low on the openness dimension. This suggests that people who are more agreeable and more open to experience would be more accepting of useful accommodations for the disabled than would other people.

Surprisingly, there were no significant interactions involving conscientiousness, so that directly facilitative accommodations were not viewed as less appropriate by conscientious individuals. Further research is needed to clarify this lack of findings, because the theoretical linkage between conscientiousness and need for achievement would appear to suggest a conflict when others are provided with resources that the conscientious could have used to meet their own achievement goals. Perhaps their self-discipline and deliberative efforts at task performance prevent them from focusing on the resources that are provided for others.

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Research at the facet level of conscientiousness may shed light on these unex- pected results.

The pattern for mental disabilities was not quite as clear, perhaps because participants had a more difficult time judging which accommodations best facilitated the mental disabilities category (consisting of depression, schizophrenia, and acute anxiety) than they did for the learning disabilities category. None- theless, one accommodation that could aid a person suffering from any of these three mental disabilities would be to leave the room and work without distraction and without being observed by others. High agreeables saw this accommodation as more appropriate than did low agreeables. In addition, high agreeables saw allowing a person with a mental disorder to have more time as more appropriate than did low agreeables. Thus, even for the mental disability category there was some evidence that agreeable people will be more accepting than others of accommodations that assist disabled persons to perform their jobs.

Stronger results might have been obtained had the mental disabilities category consisted of disorders for which the type of impairment is more similar. A post hoc analysis of mental disabilities using only depression and anxiety--two mental disorders that are somewhat similar in the nature of their impairment, and quite distinct from schizophrenia-reveals stronger differences in appropriateness levels between those high and low on both agreeableness and openness to experience (for the same accommodations indicated earlier). Stronger results also might have been obtained had student participants been more aware of the nature of the selected mental disorders and the manifestations of them that would interfere with test performance. College student understanding of mental disorders is undoubtedly somewhat unsophisticated as a result of a relative lack of familiarity with them as compared to learning disorders, which often are accommodated on college campuses.

Physical disabilities as a group posed a problem in appropriateness ratings for participants, and personality played no role in determining which accommodations were more appropriate. This category consisted of 12 disabilities, making it difficult to determine which accommodations best fit the category as a whole. To a large extent, this problem was unavoidable. Physical disabilities tend to be somewhat distinct in terms of their resulting impairments, requiring more idio- syncratic accommodations than other categories of disabilities. For example, blindness and deafness are both sensory disabilities, but require quite distinct accommodations. Arm and leg amputations, although both involving missing limbs, provide different restrictions on a person’s ability to perform tasks, and therefore need to be accommodated in different ways.

Because accommodations are linked to impairments, and not the named disability itself, the category physical disability is a heterogeneous one that cannot be studied easily. Consistent with this, there were no apparent differences in appropriateness between those high and low on any personality dimension, In


addition, this inability to ascertain appropriateness as a function of personality dimension was observed even when the two physical disabilities we had determined to be most alike-acute low back pain and chronic back pain-were the only physical disabilities considered.

As would be expected, therefore, mean appropriateness ratings for the physical disabilities category were therefore significantly lower than those for the learning disabilities category for all three personality dimensions: agreeableness, (91) = -7 .57 ,~ = .OO; openness to experience, (91) = -7 .69 ,~ = .OO; and conscientiousness, t(91) = -7.61, p = .OO. There was no significant difference between appropriateness ratings for physical and mental disabilities, however.

All accommodations were rated as significantly different from each other in terms of appropriateness (i.e., the predictor for accommodation is evidenced by all pairwise differences being significantly different from each other) for each of the personality dimensions. Without consideration of disability, the most appropriate accommodation was quiet room, followed by more time, leave the room, have the test read, complete the test at home, and complete a portion of the test (in that order). As indicated earlier, quiet room and complete a portion of the test represented strong situations in conjunction with type of disability, not allowing for personality to play a role in the judgment of their appropriateness.

Future Research Considerations

Future research must consider personality concerns in more complex ways. For example, additional research examining the role of these personality dimensions in conjunction with each other (i.e., as profiles) would aid in understanding which types of peers “fit” organizational demands for performance while meet- ing today’s requirements for achieving increased diversity with minimal conflict.

Future research also should focus specifically on the personality trait of conscientiousness. Theory indicates that persons high in conscientiousness tend to negatively perceive the appropriateness of accommodations for disabled people. Our lack of significant findings may be an artifact of the sample size, but since we obtained significance on the other two personality dimensions, other explana- tions may exist. For example, conscientious workers may be so organized and efficient that they are able to restructure their schedules and goals around any accommodations granted that would affect their surroundings, thus making the appropriateness of accommodations largely irrelevant to them. Or, perhaps in a workplace environment (as opposed to a laboratory setting), the interdependency of work processes and outcomes might allow for conscientiousness to play a significant role in appropriateness judgments for accommodations.

In addition, future research may benefit from looking at the downside of see- ing accommodation-disability pairs as appropriate. For instance, agreeable people may minimize the negative impact of conflicts as a result of accommodations,

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but by minimizing it may increase their workload, which could have detrimental effects for them and the organization. People high in openness to experience may adapt to others’ perspectives when adjusting to accommodations (Judge & Bono, 2000), but by doing so they may set aside their own interests and values in ways that are not healthy.

The problematic area of physical disabilities requires more research. Studies of individual physical disabilities must be conducted so that appropriateness of accommodations for each of them can be assessed. This must be done carefully, however; even the same physical disability can involve differing impairments for different people. For example, one woman with breast cancer may only require time away from work because of chemotherapy side effects, while another may instead (or in addition) have restricted range of motion as a result of radical sur- gery. Specifying breast cancer as a disability does not provide sufficient information for precise assessment of the appropriateness of accommodations. More specific information about the nature of the physical impairment could allow personality to reveal itself as an important determinant of appropriateness judgments. Or, consistent with our findings, it could be that accommodations for physical disabilities are more scripted than are accommodations for other types of disabilities, so that personality would continue to play an insignificant role in determining accommodation appropriateness.

Mental disabilities are understudied and pose some of the same problems that physical disabilities do. Laypeople may be unaware of the symptoms associated with a variety of mental disorders or may be operating under misconceptions about the nature of the disorders. As with physical disabilities, not all mental disorders lead to the same types of impairments. Stigmatization of some disorders may affect appropriateness judgments for accommodations (Biernat & Dovidio, 2000). Once again, clarification of the nature of the impairments associated with particular mental disorders would provide greater insight into the role that personality plays in determining such appropriateness. Investigation at the impairment level for both physical and mental disabilities would provide the greatest opportunity to study facilitativeness of individual accommodations. Because of evidence that peers may react negatively when disabled persons are made competitive through facilitative accommodation (Paetzold et al., 2003), it is at this more fine-tuned level that future research should be directed.

Learning disabilities appear to be the least problematic group of disabilities for student participants in laboratory studies that simulate classroom settings. Whether this would generalize to nonstudent groups in field studies is unclear, because college students are particularly sensitized to learning problems and the range of accommodations made for classmates having disorders, such as dyslexia or ADD. The prevalence of both the disorders and discussion surrounding them in public schools has helped to reduce stigmatization and has allowed for students to be more open about the existence of their learning disabilities.


Limitations

One of the limitations of our study involves sample size. Power estimates for our design are difficult to obtain, but approximation methods yielded estimates between .20 and .60. Even if we experienced relatively low power to detect effects, we did find statistical significance for two personality dimensions and are more confident that these results are not statistically spurious because they could not have been driven by a large sample size.

A second limitation is the potential for common method variance. The criterion and predictor variables were measured contemporaneously with the same participants, both using scale-type formats. Ideally, future research would allow criterion variables and predictor variables to be collected separately and via different systems of measurement. However, there is good reason to believe that common method variance had an insignificant impact on our results. First, both the criterion variable and the Big Five personality factors were measured using two different data-collection booklets. The criterion variable (judgments) was measured at the beginning of the first booklet, whereas the Big Five (stable dispo- sitions) were measured at the end of the second booklet. Once the first booklet was completed, the experimenter told the participants to put the booklet inside the envelope provided, and then the experimenter gave the participants the second booklet to answer. Between assessment of the criterion and the Big Five, several other distractor scales were completed. These scales should not have interfered with assessment of the Big Five, because of the stable nature of the latter.

Another limitation is that participants in the study were business students, which limits the external and ecological validity of our results. In future studies, we should attempt to extend the diversity of the participants. This would allow for investigation of other predictor variables, including moderators that would help to explain judgments about accommodation appropriateness.

Personality is, in part, a measure of stable goals and values. Thus, understanding how personality relates to judgments about accommodations for the disabled is one way of knowing why disabled individuals may be targets of peer discrimination. Employers need to be able to make accommodations in ways that enlist peer support and cooperation and avoid conflicts. Knowing which personality types find accommodation difficult provides insight into the goals, values, and other psychological factors that impede full integration of the disabled into the workp I ace.

This study provides preliminary insights for the accommodation scenario because personality traits can be considered as important assessment tools in employee selection. Clearly, different types of jobs call for different types of per- sonalities. For instance, Barrick et al. (1998) suggested that team members with higher levels of conscientiousness, agreeableness, and neuroticism may enhance team performance on additive tasks. Our results indicate that high agreeable

1436 GARCIA ET AL.

persons as well as persons high in openness to experience tend to perceive the appropriateness of accommodations positively in those situations where the accommodation facilitates the ability of the disabled person to perform. This is particularly important because the goal of the ADA is to put disabled persons on a level playing field with other people so that they can have equal opportunities to work and be successful in their jobs.

High agreeable persons and persons high in openness may be more likely to accept productive peers who are disabled and to contribute to a positive work environment when interacting with them than will persons who are low in agreeableness or openness to experience. Conscientiousness, on the other hand, appears to have no relationship with accommodation appropriateness. This suggests that employers can still hire persons high in conscientiousness for their performance benefits, but also should take into account whether they are high in agreeableness or openness to experience in order to guarantee that a cooperative and positive environment exists for disabled persons requiring accommodation.

This study contributes to the disability literature by examining how different personality types judge accommodation appropriateness for their peers. It dem- onstrates that personality type is associated with the way that accommodations are perceived when particular accommodations are given to persons with disabilities. Given the importance of peers in the accommodation process for disabled persons (Colella, 2001), it is not a minor thing for researchers or personnel selection managers to think about the personality characteristics of disabled persons’ peers.

The accommodation process for disabled people is something that involves all of the stakeholders in the organization indirectly, not just the disabled people themselves. However, restrictions imposed by the ADA prevent organizations from disclosing the nature of a disability, whether an accommodation was requested or granted, why an accommodation was granted or denied, and other information that might help peers to be more understanding and accepting of both the disabled person and the organization’s decision (ADA, 1990). If we are aware of potential problems and some potential solutions, as the present research suggests, we can make better judgments about the team of people who best will be able to work together, reducing barriers to disabled people. This research rep- resents one step toward that goal.

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