"The only disability in life is a bad attitude": A quantitative exploration of the impacts of inspiration porn
Year: 2024
Type: article
Abstract: Inspiration porn is a social media representation of visibly disabled individuals performing physical activities accompanied by short motivation captions meant to inspire viewers. Critics of inspiration porn hold that it misrepresents the reality of disability and negatively impacts disabled people. This study aimed to quantitatively explore the impacts of inspiration porn on various disability-related variables, as there is limited research on this topic. We hypothesized that exposure to inspiration porn would increase system justification and belief in a just world, decrease support for disability-related policies, and cause viewers to view disabled individuals as sources of inspiration. We also had several exploratory hypotheses. We hypothesized that exposure to inspiration porn would increase dehumanization of and prejudice towards disabled people. Additionally, we hypothesized exposure to inspiration porn would increase support for the medical model of disability and decrease support for the social model of disability. In this study participants (n = 296) saw either inspiration porn or a control image and then completed self-report measures of our dependent variables. Our results were mostly null; however, exposure to inspiration porn did increase the dehumanization of disabled people. We hope this work brings awareness to the negative impacts of inspiration porn.
Authors: Burt, Anna H, McCarty, Megan
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7070213364