Advocacy, prejudice, and role modeling in the deaf community

Prejudiced attitudes toward deaf people are a well-established phenomenon (Higgins & Nash, 1982; Moores, 1982; Quigley & Kretschmer, 1982). In recent years, however, a new phenomenon has appeared, and some members of the deaf population now openly express prejudice against the hearing (Boros & Stuckless, 1982; Nash & Nash, 1981). The phenomenon may be an interesting example of Allport's (1954) classical analysis: The victims of the prejudice may tend to reciprocate and/or internalize the prejudice to which they have been exposed. The purpose of our analysis is to examine this phenomenon in more detail, particularly from the perspective of social learning theory as described by Bandura and Walters (1963), Walters (1966), and Bandura (1977).