Others' perceptions of mothers of handicapped children.

Subjects (N = 80) viewed a video-taped interview with mothers and rated the mothers on adjective scales. One-half of the mothers had nonhandicapped children, and half had handicapped children; however, an individual mother was sometimes misrepresented to subjects as having the other type of child. When the child was described as handicapped, the stated cause of the handicap was varied. When the mother's child was misrepresented, subjects rated mothers who actually had a handicapped child significantly differently from and somewhat more negatively than mothers who actually had nonhandicapped children. When asked to imagine mothers with handicapped children, subjects' ratings differed according to the stated cause of the handicap and differed from ratings of mothers with actual handicapped children presented as such.