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Abstract

Undergraduate college students in the southern U.S. were presented with vignettes about a fictional woman seeking to become pregnant via intrauterine insemination (IUI). Participants were randomly assigned to conditions in which the woman described was 26 or 41 years old, and single, married to a man, or married to a woman. After reading the vignettes, participants rated their expectations of the prospective mother’s preparedness for parenting, ability to provide quality of life for a child, risk for pregnancy complications and achieving a healthy pregnancy. Results yielded marginally significantly (p = .05) lower expectations of achieving a healthy pregnancy when the mother was over 40, and significantly (p < .05) lower anticipation of preparedness for parenting and ability to provide quality of life when she was designated as single or married to a woman. We discuss findings in terms of bias favoring traditional families with a mother and father begun when the parents were in their twenties.

Author Biography

Sara Sohr-Preston is an Assistant Professor of Psychology at Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, LA, USA. She currently is conducting studies of the experiences of pregnant and parenting college students. Her other research interests include teaching and learning, family building issues (pregnancy, trying to conceive, infertility, miscarriage, and adoption), parenting, maternal mental health, and early childhood development.

Ashley K. Rohner obtained her B.A. in psychology and her M.A. in psychology from Southeastern Louisiana University in 2013 and 2015 respectively. She is currently the Human Resources Coordinator for a local compounding pharmacy. Her current areas of interest include social psychology, human resources, and human resources law.

Bryce H. Lott received his B.A. in psychology from Auburn University and is currently a second year student in the master’s program in psychology, with an I/O concentration, at Southeastern Louisiana University. Research interests include organizational change and evaluation, organizational culture, team dynamics, leadership development, and work-family balance.

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