What we know about public attitudes and understanding

Prevailing attitudes largely stem from low awareness and are based on assumptions in the absence of any meaningful contact with people who are blind, and a lack of representation in popular culture. Blindness is assumed to mean the total loss of vision, and there exists a great deal of fear and anxiety at the thought of becoming blind.

The public consider that blindness affects people’s ability to function well within physical environments, and across a wide range of social and professional roles. Authentic portrayals are rare. It is hard for people to imagine a blind person employed as anything other than a musician or politician, and these perceptions likely contribute to the low numbers of blind and partially sighted people in employment.

Through public awareness and behaviour change campaigns we want to build a new, positive, authentic narrative: to reduce the fear of blindness, increase empathy, and improve understanding of the spectrum of sight loss, which in turn will lead to blind and partially sighted people being better represented in all spheres of society.

Summary

• Blind and partially sighted people tell us public attitudes and understanding is one of their biggest challenges.
• The public have low awareness of the barriers that blind and partially sighted people face.
• Blindness is assumed to mean the total loss of vision. The public do not readily perceive that there are degrees of sight loss.
• Lack of familiarity is the principle driver of attitudes. Most people have no meaningful contact with blind or partially sighted people, and blindness is not well represented in popular culture.
• The public consider that blindness affects people’s ability to function well across a wide range of social roles and they find it extremely difficult to imagine that someone who is blind could be working.
• Interactions with the general public are by no means all negative, but negative experiences can have significant consequences on blind and partially sighted people’s confidence and wellbeing.
• On the whole people aren’t prejudiced towards blind and partially sighted people, but rather lack of contact means they have little knowledge or confidence around how they can help. Real life exposure is key, and encouragingly we are seeing a number of more positive portrayals in the media.
• Despite all of this, we are actually seeing signs that attitudes and perceptions among the public are worsening.
• Attitudes can change in light of greater knowledge, more positive experience and cultural narratives. Our #SeeThePerson campaign had a positive impact on those who saw it. However, we need to reach more people with sustained activity to make significant inroads into shaping public perceptions.