Role of fault attributions and desire/effort/outcome expectations in children's anticipated responses to hypothetical peers with various undesirable characteristics.

No abstract

A total of 184 adults read descriptions of six hypothetical children with various undesirable characteristics (i.e., being extremely overweight, extremely aggressive, extremely shy, a poor student, a poor athlete, displaying symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder). Following each description, the participants were asked to rate how much they disagree or agree that the child, the child's parents, and the child's biological condition (i.e., "something wrong inside the child's body or brain") are at fault for the onset and the perpetuation of the undesirable characteristic. In addition, the participants were asked to rate their attitude toward each child using a 100-point "feeling thermometer." Analyses of the participants' various fault attribution ratings revealed that they tended to agree more strongly that a child's parents and his/her biological condition are at fault for the onset and the perpetuation of the child's undesirable characteristic than is the child him/herself. Despite the participants' reluctance to blame a hypothetical child for his/her undesirable characteristic, regression analyses revealed that, in general, the more they blamed the child for the onset of his/her undesirable characteristic, the more negative their attitude was toward the child. However, the participants' ratings of the extent to which the child's parents or biological condition are at fault for the onset and the perpetuation of the child's undesirable characteristic were not found to be associated with their attitude toward any of the children. Similarities and differences between the present findings and those reported in prior studies involving younger individuals are addressed.

Two studies examined the role of various fault attributions and other factors in children's anticipated response to hypothetical peers described as having an undesirable characteristic. The children were found to distinguish among various fault attributions (i.e., general, onset, and perpetuation; study 1), and they tended to agree more strongly that the peers were responsible for the perpetuation than the onset of these characteristics (studies 1 and 2). In study 1, perceiving an aggressive or overweight peer as similar to a friend and believing that the overweight peer will overcome this undesirable characteristic were found to be associated with a relatively favorable response to these peers. The more strongly the children agreed that (1) an aggressive peer is generally at fault for his/her undesirable characteristic (study 1) and (2) peers who are aggressive, overweight, shy, or a poor student are at fault for the onset of their undesirable characteristics (study 2), the less favorably they anticipated responding to these peers. Unexpectedly, attributing responsibility to forces ‘outside the peer's control’ (i.e., parents and biology) for his/her undesirable characteristic in study 2 was not found to be associated with a relatively favorable response to any peer with an undesirable characteristic.

No abstract