When Is Neglect, Neglect?: It Depends on Who You Ask.

Abstract

In order to identify victims of child neglect, social service workers rely heavily on referrals from concerned friends, neighbors, and others in the community. Little is known, however, about how lay individuals perceive child neglect and what factors influence their decision to make a referral. This study explored the effects of child, parent, and participant gender on laypersons' evaluations of child neglect. Participants read a case of neglect of a child by a custodial and absent parent and then rated the parents' culpability and intentionality and decided whether the parents' behavior met the legal definition of neglect. When evaluating the custodial parent, men but not women viewed fathers as more culpable than mothers for the neglect of their son and viewed mothers as somewhat more culpable for the neglect of their daughter. Men also perceived absent mothers as more intentionally harmful than absent fathers. Finally, both men and women were more likely to qualify parental behavior as legally neglectful when the genders of the custodial parent and child matched. Results, which suggest that gender bias may exist in laypersons' perceptions of child neglect and may influence their decisions to report, have implications for identification of and intervention for vulnerable children and families.