Does mothering a doll change teens' thoughts about pregnancy?

Objective. To determine the effect of age on the efficacy of the computeriz ed, infant simulator doll Baby Think It Over (BTIO) for increasing middle s chool girls' knowledge about the responsibilities of parenthood and discour aging plans for teen childbearing. We hypothesized: 1) 8th grade students w ould be less apt than 6th grade students to equate BTIO care with mothering because they would rationalize that their infant would be easier to care f or than BTIO; and 2) BTIO would be a more effective teen pregnancy preventi on program with 6th grade students than with 8th grade students. Methods. Nulliparous 6th (n = 68) and 8th (n = 41) grade girls attending an urban middle school in a predominantly lower socioeconomic, Hispanic, neig hborhood were asked to care for BTIO for 3 days and 2 nights. Responses to a self-administered questionnaire were used to assess the girls' understand ing of the responsibilities and difficulties associated with parenting, the ir feelings about the similarity of BTIO care and real infant care, and the ir childbearing intentions before and after caring for BTIO. Results. Only 32 (29%) of the 109 girls thought that real infant care would be like BTIO care. Although 8th grade students were less apt than 6th grad e students to equate BTIO care with real infant care (17% vs 37%), 6th grad e students were more likely than 8th grade students to endorse statements s uggesting that real infant care would be easier than BTIO care (37% vs 24%) . Multivariate analyses revealed that this was largely because 6th grade st udents found BTIO care more difficult than did 8th grade students. Also, re gardless of age or grade, the more difficult a girl found it to care for BT IO than anticipated, the more likely she was to endorse statements indicati ng that it would be easier to care for her own infant than it had been for her to care for BTIO. Little learning about the difficulties of parenting t ook place during the study. On average, the 6th grade students did not find BTIO care more difficult than anticipated and the 8th grade students actua lly found it easier than anticipated. Finally, caring for BTIO had no affec t on the intent of students to become teen parents; 13 (12%) of the 109 stu dents wanted to be teen parents before they cared for BTIO and 16 (15%) wan ted to be teen parents after they cared for the doll. Conclusion. The results of this study demonstrate that the propensity of pe ople this age for rationalizing their own immunity to the nocuous aspects o f potentially desirable situations (the personal fable of omnipotence) allo ws those who perceive parenthood to be attractive to overlook the negative aspects of any parenting experience they have.