NCJ Number
144835
Journal
Journal of Child Sexual Abuse Volume: 1 Issue: 2 Dated: (1992) Pages: 33-47
Date Published
1992
Length
15 pages
Annotation
Although responsibility attribution is known to influence clinical practice decisions, factors influencing responsibility attribution for child abuse are not well understood; the present study involved licensed practicing psychologists who responded to clinical case vignettes designed to investigate the role of responsibility attribution in clinical decisions regarding child abuse.
Abstract
Study participants included 328 licensed psychologists in Minnesota and Oklahoma; 44 percent were female. Experimentally controlled vignettes were constructed to investigate the effects of five two-level independent variables. As dependent measures, subjects assigned relative percentages of responsibility for abuse to the father, mother, child/victim, and older sister. Results indicated that fathers suspected of sexual abuse were held significantly more responsible than those suspected of physical abuse. In addition, adolescent-age victims were held significantly more responsible than 7-year-old victims. All sources of responsibility were affected by the child providing a verbal disclosure of abuse to a psychotherapist. Regression analyses also showed that certainty in the occurrence of abuse and responsibility attributed to the child/victim and older sister accounted for 31 percent of variance in decisions to report the case as suspected abuse. Findings demonstrate the influence of case-specific characteristics on patterns of child abuse responsibility attribution among the sample of psychologists. 19 references, 1 note, 3 tables, and 1 figure