Measuring semi-projectively emotional atiitudes towards mild and severe mental retardation

Emotional attitudes towards the mildly mentally retarded, severely men-tally retarded and physically disabled are examined by means of a semi-projective test, an adopted Family Relationship Test, with special attention given to the effects of country of origin in Israel on these attitudes. The effects of social class, sex and religiosity were also studied. The random sample consisted of 360 adults in the Tel-Aviv area. The findings indicate that the physically disabled are liked the best, the mildly mentally retarded next and the severely mentally retarded the least. Neither country of origin, social class, sex or religiosity significantly af- fected any of the nine scales.