[matthewcmu]

Hey guys,

My name is Matthew Thompson and I am a doctoral student studying psychology. I am currently researching emotional and altruistic relationships between partners who have adopted a child. The study involves a short survey that can be completed online. My professor and I are having some difficulty finding participants. We were hoping someone here might have suggestions or information about how to reach adoptive parents who may be interested in participating in adoption research. Our goal is to post the survey on a website, newsletter, forum, listserv etc.

Being adopted, I’ve always had an interest in the social issues that may accompany adoption. Adoption is a gesture of love and sacrifice, and this study attempts to provide a better understanding of the loving and positive qualities of adoptive parents, as well as the particular emotional hurdles they may face.

If you are an adoptive parent and are willing to participate in this survey, I can’t tell you how much we'd appreciate your response. All information is anonymous and no identifying information is collected. The survey is quite short, taking less than 5 minutes to complete. We’d be more than happy to send you the results from the study upon its completion.
Please feel free to post any questions or comments, or contact me by email. I can be reached at thomp4mc@cmich.edu.

Here’s the link to the survey:
[]Altruism Among Adoptive Parents

Thanks again,

Matthew

[Whirled_Peas]

When I get a chance, I will take your survey.

Without having looked at it, I'm wondering what type of control group(s) you have.

One of the discussions that I've had on various adoption groups is how altruism is a terrible reason to adopt. There needs to be a bit of selfishness in all parenting. If there's not, it's really easy for the adoptive parents to get resentful when times get hard. It's better that the parents get something for it.

My guess is most families on this website adopted because they could not have a baby for some reason: infertility and single parent being the main reason. I wonder if the altruism level is different with newborn adoption as compared to adoption from foster care. Does your study address that?

[Whirled_Peas]

OK, question number 4 is not a straight forward question. The importance of my life changed when I gave birth to my son then adopted my daughter. I can no longer take the risks I once did because I cannot leave them without a mother. So, my answer to this question was different before the birth of my kids than it is now.

ETA Same with kidney question

[HappyTwinsMom]

I find it really interesting that the exact same post & "study" were posted on 3/23/09 by Carey Fitzgerald (DrFitz). Wondering what's up with this? Are two doctoral students REALLY doing the exact same study? I find that hard to believe.

[hooverlicious]

i'm sorry, huh? what does rescuing my spouse from a burning building have to do with adopting?

For us, adoption is not about altruism, it is about wanting to be parents. If we were really altrusitic we would help birth parents who don't feel they have the resources/support to parent.

I find this offensive. We want to parent - it has nothing to do with "sacrifice" in association with wanting a child.

Meh - imagine what will happen if I get this IRL.

/vent

[matthewcmu]

Originally Posted by Whirled_Peas

Without having looked at it, I'm wondering what type of control group(s) you have.

Hi Whirled_Peas,
Good question. We're also looking at parents with biological children, and married couples with no children.

Originally Posted by Whirled_Peas

I wonder if the altruism level is different with newborn adoption as compared to adoption from foster care. Does your study address that?

Another good question. Unfortunately our study does not differentiate between the two.

[matthewcmu]

Originally Posted by HappyTwinsMom

I find it really interesting that the exact same post & "study" were posted on 3/23/09 by Carey Fitzgerald (DrFitz). Wondering what's up with this? Are two doctoral students REALLY doing the exact same study? I find that hard to believe.

Hi HappyTwinsMoM,

Thanks for bringing this up. Probably should have mentioned this at the onset. This project has been ongoing, and I was only recently brought on board.
I have some limited experience in adoption research (Honors thesis at UH Manoa).

My academic interests stem from being adopted myself. I was adopted at birth from an American Indian reservation (the Crow Nation). Both of my adopted parents are caring people of Caucasian ancestry. With their support, I managed to locate my birth parents, one of which still lives on the rez. It's been quite an experience, and opened my eyes to a lot.

[matthewcmu]

Originally Posted by hooverlicious

i'm sorry, huh? what does rescuing my spouse from a burning building have to do with adopting?

For us, adoption is not about altruism, it is about wanting to be parents. If we were really altrusitic we would help birth parents who don't feel they have the resources/support to parent.

I find this offensive. We want to parent - it has nothing to do with "sacrifice" in association with wanting a child.

Meh - imagine what will happen if I get this IRL.

/vent

Points well-taken. My apologies, the questions were not meant to be in any way offensive.

All questions were carefully selected from previous peer-reviewed altruism research.

[Saya]

OK, I have taken the survey. But I agree with others here that many of the questions don't seem that relevant. They seem to lack context, you know? But you know the literature.

My husband points out that he would do better (i.e. more "altruistic" then I) if he did this survey, because he is 1) way more compulsive about chores and 2) better able to handle himself inside a burning building. (I said "Look, I should stay outside, because if either one of us is going to have some survival skills in a burning building it would be you - I would just scream and fall into the fetal position." And he agreed wholeheartedly that I should remain outside.) However that doesn't seem to have that much to do with our level of altruism.

(Edited to say - Also I agree with the others who said that they did not adopt for altruistic reasons; I don't think I'd expect a correlation there. Plus aren't there are anti-adoption folks out there saying that in fact adoptive parents are more SELFISH then other people? I prefer to think we're just run of the mill people. )

Good luck with your research.

[portlowski]

INterestingly enough...I DO need a kidney as your survery hypothetically asked. I know every survey can't be politically correct but WOW is that a terrible question...kidney donation is a VERY safe operation and a kidney would never be taken form someone who would liekly die from the operation. I understand this is only a hypothetical but as someone awaiting an organ donation I just HATE to see scary misinformation thrown out there about organ donation. The public needs to know that live kidney donation is only done after extremely careful screening and donors go on to live normal healthy lives.

(sidebar: my husband is not donating his kidney because we didn't both want to go through surgery while parenting a toddler. My friend will be donating instead)

[kretzklan]

I took the survey as well and found that I'm not very altruistic (if this is a true measure). I don't like the idea of altruistic adoption - I didn't go to Russia to 'save' kids. I went because I wanted more children and there were children there that needed families - a kind of two way street that worked out for both of us.

[robandjulie]

I'm PM'ing you my comments so as not to bias anyone else's answers.

[jalapeno]

I have to say that associating altruism with adoption also rubs me the wrong way. I've seen it used elsewhere in this context as well.

It bugs me because to me the implication is that it requires some additional level of sacrifice to parent my children - that they must somehow be more difficult to parent or perhaps more difficult to love. Which I find, well, insulting to my kids. And I know that's not how it's intended (and may not even be totally relevant - for all I know adoptive parents are more altruistic somehow though I really doubt it). It's not that I really take offense . . . it's more that I have trouble taking studies like this seriously because the premise just seems so off base.

Just one person's opinion. I do honestly wish you the best in your research though!

[Jensboys]

Originally Posted by portlowski

INterestingly enough...I DO need a kidney as your survery hypothetically asked. I know every survey can't be politically correct but WOW is that a terrible question...kidney donation is a VERY safe operation and a kidney would never be taken form someone who would liekly die from the operation. I understand this is only a hypothetical but as someone awaiting an organ donation I just HATE to see scary misinformation thrown out there about organ donation. The public needs to know that live kidney donation is only done after extremely careful screening and donors go on to live normal healthy lives.

(sidebar: my husband is not donating his kidney because we didn't both want to go through surgery while parenting a toddler. My friend will be donating instead)

Just wanted to say that having just gone through the process to donate a kidney to my cousin she is ABSOLUTELY FREAKING RIGHT (of course, I was denied the ability to donate because I had cancer in my kidney SURPRISE ... and being willing to donate saved MY life) the screening is endless and continuous and you have to be as healthy as a horse and quite sane for them to consider you as a kidney donor. Saying all that ... the surgery IS rather painful

[mommy3]

I've responded to your survey but also don't understand how you correlate altruism to adoption. This wasn't why we adopted, if that's your drift. I'd love to hear a bit more about how your info is intended to correlate one to the other. susan