Abstract

Adults in the U.S. (undergraduate college students and adults recruited online) read vignettes about a fictional individual seeking to adopt an infant. Based on random assignment, participants read versions in which the prospective adoptive parent described was either an implied male or female and single, married to someone of the opposite sex, or married to someone of the same sex. After reading the vignettes, participants rated their expectations of the prospective parent’s ability to parent and their perceptions of the prospective parent’s personal characteristics. Female participants reported significantly (p < .05) higher expectations of general ability to parent and perceived higher responsibility, greater likeability, and less selfishness. Both sexes endorsed significantly lower anticipation of ability to parent and less responsibility when the prospective parent was designated as single or in a same-sex marriage. Same-sex prospective parents were additionally rated as significantly higher in immorality. Prospective fathers were rated as less likeable than prospective mothers and participants approved less of their plan to adopt. The authors discuss findings as relevant to bias favoring traditional families headed by a man and a woman with the wife taking the lead in the transition to parenthood.

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