Northern Illinois University
Interpersonal Evaluation and Measurement Laboratory

Objectives

• Highlight and examine the unique experiences of employees who have invisible disabilities (as compared to visible disabilities and other invisible identities).
• Identify unique work-related (cognitive, self-regulatory) challenges that emerge for employees who actively conceal disabilities at work.
• Understand how decisions about disclosure in the workplace affect employees with disabilities, their co-workers, and the employing organization.
• Promote and disseminate our findings in order to inform and influence legislative and workplace policies.

Our Mission

The Invisible Disability Group (IDG) is committed to using a mixed-methods approach to examine how invisible disabilities affect individual health and work performance. Disability is a unique demographic characteristic as it can be directly related or perceived to be directly related to ability and work performance. Importantly, many of the most task-relevant disabilities are invisible (e.g., learning or cognitive impairments, chronic pain).

Although disclosure of such disabilities could lead to receiving accommodations to assist work performance that might be challenged by the disability, many employees instead might choose to conceal the disability to avoid social stigma. Concealing invisible disabilities adds additional work challenges above and beyond the disability itself as concealing requires self-regulatory and cognitive resources that could be devoted to work tasks.

We aim to understand the degree of self-regulatory and cognitive demand that accompanies concealing disability in the workplace and the extent to which the demand interferes with work performance and relationships. Much research and theorizing suggests that disclosing leads to better physical and psychological health outcomes. However, several contextual factors, such as anticipated social stigma, might outweigh the individual health and work benefits of disclosure. We intend to examine under what conditions concealing an invisible disability, thus forfeiting potential accommodations and risking additional work-related challenges, may be perceived by the employee as more adaptive than disclosing. We plan to disseminate our findings in order to influence the creation of legislative and workplace policies that are sensitive to the unique challenges faced by individuals with invisible disabilities and that foster environments in which these workers can reach their full potential (in terms of both work and health outcomes).