Fit to Lead: Domain-Specific Attitudinal Barriers to Institutional Authority for People with Physical Disabilities

Research on attitudes toward people with physical disabilities in positions of authority has concentrated on the electoral evaluation of political candidates, leaving open whether public skepticism is specific to politics or extends across other roles of public trust. In this study, I compare attitudes toward people with physical disabilities across three spheres of institutional authority: political candidate, military officer, and classroom teacher. In an online survey (N = 605), respondents were randomly assigned to one of three versions, each framing all items around a single sphere, and rated the disabled person on general capacity, role-specific fitness, appearance-based expectations, and behavioral willingness, alongside an implicit measure and a general disability-attitudes scale. Evaluation patterns differed sharply by sphere: for military officers, confidence in role fitness was lowest while appearance-based expectations were highest; teachers showed the reverse pattern; political candidates showed neither, and sphere differences held net of general disability attitudes. Disabled and nondisabled respondents diverged most broadly within the political sphere, though a comparable gap emerged for general capacity in the military sphere. Ideology shaped stated attitudes only in the military and teaching spheres, and automatic associations only in the political sphere. These findings suggest public attitudes create domain-specific, not uniform, barriers to inclusion—with standards for political candidates the least clearly defined, notably because, unlike military and teaching appointments, the public’s own evaluations directly determine access to political office.