On being called "mentally retarded": do developmental and professional perspectives limit labeling effects?

When children are labeled "mentally retarded," adults sometimes respond to their failures in ways that stimulate learned helplessness. The generalizability of such labeling effects was assessed in this study. Participants were four groups of adults that varied in professional experience with retarded children: within each group, some subjects subscribed to the developmental position (that retarded and nonretarded children have similar reasoning and learning capacities when matched for mental age) and some to the difference position (that retarded children lag behind their nonretarded peers in such capacities even when matched for mental age) of mental retardation. All subjects made judgments about the failure of a "retarded" and an unlabeled child. Strong labeling effects were found among proponents of the difference position but not among proponents of the developmental position, as well as among those groups with relatively little professional experience. Results suggest that beliefs consistent with the developmental position and experience with retarded children both attenuate the potentially helplessness-inducing effects of the mentally retarded label.