Forty-four depressed and non-depressed mothers participated in a videotaped interaction with their own infant and then rated the videotape using the Infant Stereotyping Scale and the Interaction Rating Scale. In addition, one half of the mothers rated a videotape of an unfamiliar infant who was labelled psychologically 'depressed' and the other half rated a videotape of the same infant with no label given. Both the depressed and non-depressed mothers rated the 'depressed' labelled infant more negatively than the non-labelled infant on the attributes of physical potency, cognitive competence, sociability and difficult behaviour. Physical appearance was the only rating that was not biased by the 'depressed' label. Mothers' ratings of their own infants were more positive than their ratings of the non-labelled stimulus infant. Depressed mothers did not see their infants more negatively except on one rating. They rated the physical appearance of their own infant more negatively than non-depressed mothers.
I Key words: depressed mothers; depressed infants; perceptions Adults use stereotypes to guide and establish their perceptions of infants (Pharis and Manosevitz, 1984;Stem and Hildebrandt, 1984). Psychologically depressed mothers, in particular, view their infants more negatively than mothers who are not depressed (Field et al., 1993). The present investigation examined whether mothers generally perceive normal infants negatively when they are labelled