Abstract
32 male and 38 female (mean age 28.2 yr.) subjects were shown a video-taped counseling session in which they saw a woman who exhibited signs of depression, anxiety, and indecision resulting from an unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. Subjects rated the woman on 15 biopolar adjective pairs as to how they saw her now and for the future. Generally a married woman was seen more negatively than a single woman. More positive characteristics were attributed to the woman in the future, and female subjects tended to increase the positiveness of their ratings for the future more than did males. Abortion vs birth had no significant effect. Item analyses indicated that several adjective-pairs discriminated among the various conditions (marital status, sex, and problem solution). Multiple discriminant function analysis detected a group of seven adjectives which could be combined to classify correctly 58% of the subjects into groups.
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