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Drawing upon findings from a qualitative project exploring welfare stigma in the lives of women in Merseyside, this article examines experiences of stigma and resistance strategies among the mothers interviewed. The article provides insights into how gendered stigma manifests in the lives of mothers reliant on social security benefits in the present era of continued welfare reform. The mothers' experiences of stigma are argued to revolve around the devaluation of caring labour, the perception that benefits are undeserved and the notion of 'bad motherhood'. Furthermore, the article contributes to knowledge about stigma resistance strategies, including acknowledging the value of care and rejecting blaming narratives. Nonetheless, it is argued that owing to the power and pervasiveness of structurally-imposed stigma, individualised resistance strategies are limited and mothers must also engage in everyday stigma management techniques.

This article reports the development of an instrument to measure attraction to group and discusses several studies designed to assess its reliability and validity. The Group Attitude Scale is a 20-item self-report measure constructed following an extensive survey of the literature in the area of attraction to group. Final selection of items was based on data obtained from 178 members in 26 groups. In three studies, coefficient alpha has ranged from .90 to .97 at various points in the life of the participating groups. GAS scores are significantly related to interpersonal attraction among group members, group attendance, and termination anxiety. Scores on the GAS also correlate significantly with process consultants' assessments of members' levels ofattraction to group and to scores on the cohesion subscale of the Group Environment Scale (Moos et al., 1974). Implications for research and practice are discussed.