Social rejection, role conflict, and adjustment: psychological consequences of orthopaedic disability.

-20 orthopaedically disabled hospital patients responded to a self-ideal discrepancy scale and the Eysenck Personaliry Inventory. The severely disabled Ss were more self-accepting and less neurotic than the marginally disabled Ss. A direct relationship obtained between age and a composite measure of maladjustment (r = .42, P < .001), but this was not due simply to the duration of the disabilities. The results were interpreted as supporting the role-conflict hypothesis rather than the social-rejection hypothesis concerning the psychological consequences of physical disability.