Adults' Assessments of Children's Accident Risks

Abstract

It was hypothesized that the parents, the child, other people, the environment, and chance are salient causes in adults' causal schemata of accidents in childhood and that their assessments of the likelihood of such accidents in connection with the supervision of children depend on the strength attributed to these causes. In support of the hypothesis, ratings by 72 adult nonparents (undergraduates) of the likelihood that children in different ages (2–4, 5–6, 7–9, and 10–12 yr.) become seriously injured by poisonings, drownings, traffic accidents, home fires, medical mistreatments, and tornadoes correlated with their ratings of the strength attributed to the causes. The analysis also showed differences in the causal schemata for the different types of accidents with respect to how much causal strength was attributed to the parents and the child as a function of the child's age.