Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2000), 73, 119–129 Printed in Great Britain Ó 2000 The British Psychological Society Employer willingness to comply with the Disability Discrimination Act regarding staV selection in the UK Chris J. Jackson* University of Surrey, UK Adrian Furnham University College London, UK Kate Willen University of Surrey, UK This study investigated personnel directors and managers’ willingness to revise their current selection procedures as a result of both their attitude towards disabled persons and their knowledge of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA). The DDA states that ‘reasonable adjustments’ must be made to the selection process for persons with a disability to enable them to compete on an equal level with non-disabled candidates. Results showed that employer willing- ness to comply with the Act is predicted by attitude towards disabled people and knowledge of the legislation. The results are discussed in terms of the likely impact that the DDA will have on the employment situation for persons with a disability and the factors which might aVect its success. During the last three decades, the rights of minority groups have been increasingly recognized in most Western societies and this is reected in the legislation which has been introduced to prevent discrimination against members of these groups in employment (e.g. in the United Kingdom, the Race Relations Act 1968 and the Sex Discrimination Act 1975). The most recent legislation of this kind in the United Kingdom is the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 (DDA) which came into force at the end of 1996. The DDA marks an important change in the situation of a person with a disability (PD) who is currently in or seeking work, as it introduced new measures to prevent possible unfavourable treatment by employers. Examination of the employment statistics for PDs shows that this legislation is overdue because PDs are much more likely to be unemployed or under-employed than the general population (Johnson, 1992). Oliver (1990) also found that PDs are *Requests for reprints should be addressed to Dr Chris J. Jackson, School of Human Sciences, Department of Psychology, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey GU2 5XH, UK. (e-mail: christopher.jackson@surrey.ac.uk). 119