PHYSICAL ATTRACTIVENESS AND THE EFFECTS OF LABELING ON ADULT PERCEPTIONS OF PRETERM INFANTS (STEREOTYPE, HIGH-RISK INFANT, COGNITIVE CONFIRMATION, EFFECT)
Abstract
Knowledge of an infant's prematurity in the absence of interaction has been found to lead to a negative bias in perception of infant characteristics. This study was part of the current research effort to identify those conditions under which this prematurity stereotype will be salient. Physical attractiveness was selected for study because of the body of evidence suggesting that appearance biases perception of infant/child characteristics. The study was an attempt to learn how physical attractiveness would mediate effects of the prematurity stereotype. Facial photographs of newborn full-term infants were pretested for attractiveness during the pilot phase of this research. Four photographs were employed as stimuli in the main study. Each subject saw one photograph and received a description of an infant that varied according to birth status label and health risk. Subjects also watched a videotape they were told was a behavioral sample of the same infant at nine months of age. They completed ratings consisting of various descriptors that served as dependent measures. A 2 (Sex of Subject: male vs. female) x 2 (Birth Status Label: full-term vs. preterm) x 2 (Physical Attractiveness: attractive vs. unattractive) x 2 (Health Risk: low vs. high) multivariate analysis of covariance design was employed. Subjects expressed a less positive behavioral inclination toward unattractive full-terms but not preterms. In addition, high-risk infants were perceived as less cognitively competent by females and less sociable by all subjects. The absence of an attractiveness effect for the preterm group was explained in terms of subjects' attributions about physical appearance which are likely to vary according to term. Findings pertaining to health risk suggested that it may be risk information inherent in birth status label that is most salient for the expression of bias. This stereotype was conceptualized as a cognitive confirmation effect (Darley & Gross, 1983) and implications for intervention were discussed. Sex of subject differences were discussed in terms of female raters' greater experience in caring for infants.
Degree
Ph.D.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy
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