The perceived cause of the disability can influence the degree of stigma directed toward the individual (Smart pg. 101). If someone has been hurt in an n accident situation a person is more likely be able to relate them because a car accident for example, can happen to anyone at any time. However when the disability is congenital, meaning when it is from birth and not the cause of an outside force the person living with a disability is not looked at as sympatric because people who are not living with a disability can not even begin to think of what it is like or relate. On the hierarchy of stigmas the person living with the disability that was cause by a war is looked at as being noble and honorable. They did not cause it but somebody else did but a person born with a disability may be looked at as causing there own disability.
I think that the hierarchy of stigma is learned and not a built in part of the human thinking process based on the example I have seen in children. They will see a person with a wheelchair and be very excited and want to ride on it. But that child five years later will avert their eyes from the same person in a wheelchair. Walster (1966) suggested that the human tendency to blame the individual for his or her disability is an attempt to protect ourselves from existential angst or acknowledging the randomness of the disability. This would make it seem like the reason that people often want to know how someone living with a disability is so that the person asking can mentally find a safe ground.
To some degree I think that many of us see life as a story and often want to know other peoples life stories. To know a person you need to know their past to some degree and by asking how a person they got to where they are is simply just a question to better understand someone.
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