Medical Professionals’ Stereotypes about Race, Socioeconomic Status, and Child Abuse

• In Event: Poster Session II

Abstract

As explained by Madon (1997), examining the specific components that make up a stereotype allows one to assess the valence, strength, and inaccuracy of the stereotype. Moreover, identifying the content of stereotypes helps to contextualize their effects. Drawing from this social psychological foundation, we determined the content of stereotypes associating race and social class with child abuse as perceived by medical professionals, as recent exonerations have identified medical misdiagnosis of abuse as a source of wrongful convictions. Medical professionals (e.g., doctors, nurses, physician’s assistants) were recruited via local hospitals and snowball sampling to complete one of two online surveys. On the Phase 1 survey, participants listed words related to stereotypes about child abuse and either race or socioeconomic status. On the Phase 2 survey, a second group of participants rated how much the most common attributes identified in Phase 1 (e.g., poor, uneducated, stressed) were related to either the race or social class stereotype. This combined procedure both assessed the content of the stereotypes and identified the most stereotypic constructs. Results have implications for understanding how stereotypes might affect medical decision making, racial and class disparities in misdiagnosis of child abuse and, in turn, wrongful convictions.

Authors

• Kimberly Bernstein, University at Albany, SUNY

• Cynthia J Najdowski, University at Albany, State University of New York