Introducing the Intersecting Disability and Race Attitudes Implicit Association Test (IDRA-IAT)

Posted on April 10, 2025

By Carli Friedman, CQL Director of Research

The concept intersectionality is a way to help us understand how different forms of oppression intersect and interact, impacting people with multiple marginalized identities. For example, Kimberlé Crenshaw first coined the term to describe how Black women experience discrimination differently from Black men and White women. They don’t necessarily experience racism the same ways Black men experience it or sexism the same ways White women experience it, but often instead face unique forms of discrimination because of specifically being Black women.

While research on intersectionality is growing, there has been a lot less focus on the impact on disabled people. For example, while we know that most people are implicitly (unconsciously) biased against disability, that bias may actually operate differently if the disabled person is white or Black, Indigenous, and people of color (BIPOC). One of the problems is that implicit association tests (IATs), which are the most common measures used to examine implicit attitudes, are by design binary and can only compare two groups at a time (e.g., disabled vs nondisabled, or white people vs Black people, etc.). This means we don’t have a lot of good data about intersecting implicit attitudes; we need this data to create interventions to improve people’s biases! That’s why in this study my aim was to develop a new way to measure people’s intersecting implicit attitudes. Specifically, I developed and tested a new measure of intersecting disability and race attitudes – the Intersecting Disability and Race Implicit Association Test (IDRA-IAT). To do so, I created the IDRA-IAT, piloted it with 536 members of the general public in the United States, and then analyzed the results for reliability, validity, and trends in people’s intersecting attitudes.

Results

Previous research about implicit attitudes towards disabled people has found people have high levels of bias against disability and, separately, implicit measures of race attitudes have found people have moderate level of bias against people of color. However, in this study, using the IDRA-IAT, I found that people implicitly preferred nondisabled white people the most, then disabled white people the second most, then nondisabled people of color, then disabled people of color the least. By looking at intersecting attitudes we’re able to see a lot more nuance in people’s implicit attitudes, including that whiteness really impacted view of disability and how much white disabled people were favored.

Implicit Attitudes of Participants

I also looked at attitudes based on participants’ own identities and found significant differences. Although all participants still favored white nondisabled people the most, there were some noteworthy differences. For example, white disabled participants significantly favored people from their own racial identity over their own disability identity – preferring both white disabled and nondisabled people significantly more than disabled people of color. They also consciously underestimated how much bias they had the most compared to all the other participants. In contrast, participants who were nondisabled people of color actually had similar attitudes towards their own identity group (nondisabled people of color) as disabled white people and disabled people of color. Disabled participants of color had similar attitudes about disabled and nondisabled people of color, but favored white nondisabled and disability people more than these groups.  

Implicit Attitudes Differ by Participant’s Own Identities

I also found the IDRA-IAT had similar psychometrics (i.e., internal consistency, test-retest correlation, and construct validity) to other IATs. See the full manuscript for more information on validity and reliability.

“To advance disability justice, much more research about intersectionality and quantitative methodologies which promote intersectionality are necessary, especially related to disability. The IDRA-IAT is an attempt to create a new way to measure intersecting implicit attitudes, specifically related to disability and race. While doing so, our findings not only indicate the IDRA-IAT has similar psychometrics to other IATs, but also indicates intersecting implicit attitudes reveal a greater level of nuance about disability and race than single-axis implicit measures. We recognize that there is a lot more that comprises oppression and discrimination than attitudes alone. However, our hope is that the IDRA-IAT can be one valuable tool in the arsenal of many in the work to dismantle the oppression disabled people face” (Friedman, 2025).

This article is a summary of the following journal manuscript: Friedman, C. The Intersecting Disability and Race Implicit Association Test. Rehabilitation Psychology. https://doi.org/10.1037/rep0000623

This study was funded by a grant from the WITH Foundation.