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College students' attitudes toward adoption: a brief note.

Article Excerpt
In the current experiment, college students were presented with a scenario describing a fictitious couple that was adding another child to their family. The specific circumstances under which this addition was occurring, varied yielding a 2 (adoption status) X 2 (number of current children) X 2 (financial status) between subjects design. After reading the scenario, students answered a series of questions on their attitudes toward the new addition and completed the Adoption Belief Scale. Results indicated main effects for each of the variables and a positive correlation between scores on the Adoption Belief Scale and attitudes toward the new family situation. These results are discussed in light of societal norms and expectations for family size and structure.

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Since the 1964 publication of Shared Fate: A Theory of Adoption and Mental Health by Kirk, adoption research has expanded greatly in nature and in scope. Although it is not the purpose of this brief paper to review all the topics on the subject matter, a few are mentioned to give readers an example of the diversity of adoption research. Examples of adoption research include examining: (a) sex differences in attitudes toward adoption (Gibbons, Rufener, & Wilson, 2006), (b) general depictions of adoption in broadcast news (Kline, Karel, & Chatterjee, 2006), (c) family ideology and the social stigma of adoption (Wegar, 2000), and (d) generational changes in motivation for adoption (Hoksbergen, 1998). The purpose of the current study was to focus on college students' attitudes toward adoption using an experimental task. It was predicted that college students would exhibit a more positive attitude toward...

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