The following is an excerpt of the intervention methodology. For more information, please see the full text of the article on the publisher's website or through your institution's library.

STUDY 1

In Study 1, we tested the hypothesis that imagined contact will have a positive effect on expected work-related outcomes of people with disabilities by enhancing the belief in the performance level. [...]

Method

Participants and procedure Participants were 300 Brazilian Engineering students; 211 males and 89 females; ages ranged from 17 to 36 (M = 21.38, SD = 2.82); 272 students (91%) had no prior contact with people with disabilities. [...] Thus, participants were randomly allocated to one of six conditions in a 2 (condition: experimental vs. control) X 3 (type of disability: blind, deaf, or physical) design. [...] In the experimental group, participants followed the typical imagined contact instructions, adapted for the purpose of this study: [Verbal Stimulus A]. In line with previous research on imagined contact, in the control condition, participants read: [Verbal Stimulus B]. After the time was up, in line with imagined contact research, participants were asked to write down what they had imagined in as much detail as possible. Finally, participants completed the dependent measures. [...]

Dependent variables

Belief in performance level Participants were asked to answer to what extent they agreed with the following three statements: Having a disability compromises the quality of the work performed by the person; Having a disability contributes to less productivity at work; Having a disability causes worse performance at work. A 6- point scale was used [...].

Expected work-related outcomes Participants were asked to indicate the extent to which they agreed with two items [...]. The items were (1) Lower level of outcomes is a consequence of working with disabled people (2) Slowness of outcomes is a consequence of working with disabled people. A 11-point scale [...] was used. [...]

STUDY 2

In Study 2, we aimed to verify the effectiveness of imagined contact in a real world organizational context. This study was similar to Study 1, but the following important changes were made: (a) we tested an instructional set considering cooperative work contact. [...] (b) we used a more relevant and stronger control condition. [...] (c) We tested imagined contact with professionals in actual work conditions to examine whether imagined contact can also be effective when implemented among working individuals; (d) We introduced a new dependent variable, support for people with disabilities’ rights in workplaces. [...]

Method

Participants and procedure Participants were 138 Brazilian professionals (46 working in factories; 20 in commerce; 64 in services; and 8 in other areas); 52 males and 86 females; ages ranged between 19 and 67 (M = 32.09, SD = 9.19). 69% of the participants did not work directly with any people with disabilities but had people with disabilities in their workplaces; 31% of the participants worked directly with people with disabilities; 90% completed Higher Education. We tested gender and prior contact as control variables and the significant benefits of imagined contact were demonstrated against these controls. Thus, participants were randomly allocated to one of six conditions in a 2 (condition: experimental vs. control) X 3 (type of disability: blind, deaf, or physical) design. [...] In this study, cooperative imagined contact was introduced as an effective form of imagined contact, particularly relevant to the workplace [...]. In the imagined contact condition, participants were instructed: [Verbal Stimulus C]. To ensure a more stringent test of the imagined contact effect, the control condition asked participants to imagine the exact same positive interaction without creating an intergroup context [...]. Specifically, participants were instructed: [Verbal Stimulus D]. After the mental simulation, similar to Study 1 and previous research, participants were asked to write down what they had imagined in as much detail as possible. Finally, the participants were asked to complete a questionnaire with the dependent measures. [...]

Dependent variables

Belief in performance level The same measure as in Study 1 was used. We recoded so that higher scores on this scale indicated more positive performance level of people with disability [...]

Support for the workplace rights of people with disability Three items measured the extent to which participants agreed with supporting the workplace rights of people with disability, based on World Health Organization [...]. A 5-point scale was used (1 for not all to 5 for extremely), with higher numbers indicating higher support for people with disabilities’ workplace rights [...].