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Effects of Handicap Severity, Responsibility, and Race on Impressions of Substance‐Abusing Mothers and Their Children
Author(s) -
MurphyBerman Virginia,
Sullivan Megan,
Berman John J.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
journal of applied social psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.822
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1559-1816
pISSN - 0021-9029
DOI - 10.1111/j.1559-1816.1993.tb01037.x
Subject(s) - vignette , psychology , respondent , operationalization , perception , ethnic group , developmental psychology , social psychology , white (mutation) , race (biology) , clinical psychology , philosophy , biochemistry , chemistry , botany , epistemology , neuroscience , sociology , biology , political science , anthropology , law , gene
The purpose of this study was to examine how individuals’ impressions of a handicapped child and the child's mother would be affected by (a) the mother's apparent degree of responsibility for the child's handicap (operationalized as engaging or not engaging in alcohol abuse while pregnant), (b) severity of the child's handicap, and (c) race of the mother (black vs. white). Impressions were defined as respondents'(a) decisions regarding funding for special education services for the child, (b) emotional reactions toward the mother and the child, (c) perceptions of traits possessed by the mother, and (d) evaluations of the fairness of payment strategies for special education resources for the child. A vignette approach was used in which each respondent read one of eight possible descriptions of mother and child. Results indicated that although mothers were evaluated more negatively when they engaged in alcohol abuse than when they did not, these critical impressions did not “spill over” to negatively color appraisals of the child. Mothers who were black and who had a severely handicapped child were evaluated more negatively than were white mothers in the same situation, although the reverse occurred when the child's handicap was described as being only moderate. Implications are discussed.