What's in a Label?: Labeling Bias and Parents' Judgment of Child Problem Behaviors

Parents usually recognize potential problems in their child’s behavior early in its development. Generally, the parent’s perception is discriminating; however, sometimes a parent’s judgment may be influenced by other factors beyond what the child’s behavior implies. A label and the subsequent bias may be such an influential factor. The proposed study will examine whether a labeling bias influences a parent’s judgment of child behavior. The participants of the study will be parents, randomly assigned to one of two groups. One group will be given a vignette that describes behaviors that are inconsistent with a disorder usually first diagnosed in childhood. The participants will then be asked to make a judgment of the behavior and determine if the behavior is indicative of a disorder. The second group will be asked to make the same determination of the same vignette however a suggestion that the child may have a disorder will be added. We hypothesize that the group with the disorder suggestion will be more likely to determine the child has a disorder despite the contradicting symptoms.