The image of athletes with physical disabilities on Instagram through Neurocommunication

Introduction: People with disabilities have historically suffered from the stereotype of not reaching the prevailing standard of physical beauty. The rise of the movement known as body positivity on social media has allowed disabled athletes to portray themselves based on an observable disability. Methodology: The aim of this research is to determine the cognitive perception of 120 youthful Spanish and Portuguese university students regarding the image displayed by athletes with physical disabilities on Instagram. To this end, two neurocommunication techniques have been used: eye tracking, and galvanic skin response (GSR). Results: Overall, athletes attracted more attention to traits that explicitly show their disability than non-athletes with disabilities, as the latter portrayed themselves on Instagram from the perspective of beauty and fashion. Data related to emotional arousal corroborated the data related to attention. Discussion: It seems that specific aspects of an athlete's disability continue to attract attention from the stereotypical viewpoint of an athlete's body. The results regarding the focus on beauty and fashion may help to reduce the stigma of social identity perceived by the non-disabled public. Conclusions: These findings seem to indicate that self-portrayal on social networks based on beauty and fashion attracts more audience attention than others, due to the fact that such people present themselves as attractive rather than as people with disabilities, even when they specifically display their disabled trait, which is true in all of the cases.