SHOULD THIS CHILD BE REMOVED FROM HOME - HYPOTHESIS GENERATION AND INFORMATION-SEEKING AS PREDICTORS OF CASE DECISIONS

Two vital aspects of the investigative process in child abuse and negl ect (CAN) cases are (a) generating as many plausible hypotheses as pos sible and (b) seeking out as much uncontaminated information as possib le. Alternatively, unwarranted assumptions about the nature of CAN cas es can impair investigative decision making. We examined whether the n umbers of (a) unwarranted assumptions, (b) hypotheses generated, and ( c) requests for additional information concerning a hypothetical repor ted case of CAN predicted level of agreement with a premature decision to remove a child from home among a group of CAN professionals. As ex pected, lower levels of agreement with the intervention were associate d with (a) less unwarranted assumptions, (b) a greater number of hypot heses generated, and (c) more requests for information concerning the case. Compared with a group of undergraduates, a significantly greater percentage of CAN professionals requested information, and a signific antly smaller percentage of professionals made unwarranted assumptions . Interestingly, however, no significant difference in mean level of a greement with the intervention was observed between professionals and undergraduates. Directions for future research are discussed.