In this configuration the non-disabled ingroup viewer watches a disabled outgroup character, but the narrative emphasises a new, common ingroup identity. At the same time, the original non-disabled – disabled binary remains. The aim is to create a sense of intergroup similarity and difference – inclusion and diversity. This way the disabled character is perceived as having a ‘dual identity’, namely an outgroup and a common ingroup.

For example, the Channel 4 promo for the 2020 Tokyo Paralympics emphasises the disabled athletes but also adds a new, superordinate and common ingroup of ‘human’ and ‘British’. The athletes are not represented as ‘supercrips‘, who posses superhuman skills to overcome their disability. Instead, they are shown as ordinary, yet diverse, British human beings.

They are accomplished athletes, who exercise hard in ordinary locations, and who even experience ableist social boundaries. But, they also give birth, they have breakfast, they use social media and they drive past old Victorian terraced houses. They are neither glamorised, nor victimised. They are neither incapable, nor superhuman-capable. This is facilitated by perspective-taking strategies of showing material interactions and everydayness.

Interestingly, this representation is very different to the Paralympics promos from the 2016 games in Rio de Janeiro. These centred heavily on the supercrip stereotype to idealise and spectacalise the athletes and disabled people in general. After critique from the disability community and audience research studies, Channel 4 changed the representation in 2020 to avoid the positive stereotype of the heroic supercrip. Instead, they showed more nuanced and multi-layered portrayals that make the disability outgroup more relatable through the common identities of human and British. The below images show the contrast between the 2016 and 2020 representation.

The common identity model can be very efficient in reducing stigma and prejudice, but it also poses the risk of ‘ingroup projection’. This means that some non-disabled viewers may simply refuse to accept the common identity, because their strong ableist bias tells them that only non-disabled people can be typical human beings and British people. They would consider a disabled person being ‘normalised’ as a too transgressive and threatening to their ingroup.

Chapter 10 goes into more depth about common ingroup identity and how to prevent identity threat and ingroup projection.

The next and final stigma reduction strategy is the most potent one, yet the most difficult to achieve: individual identity.