Citation

Rohner RP, Rohner EC. Child Abuse Negl. 1980; 4(3): 189-198.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1980, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Parental acceptance-rejection theory predicts that emotional abuse by parents has consistent effects on the personality development of children everywhere, as well as having consistent effects on the personality functioning of adults who were rejected as children. More specifically, parental acceptance-rejection theory predicts--and worldwide tests of these predictions confirm the expectation--that rejected children everywhere tend more than accepted children to be: hostile, aggressive, passive aggressive, or to have problems with the management of hostility and aggression; to be dependent or "defensively independent," depending on the degree of rejection; to have an impaired sense of self-esteem and self-adequacy; to be emotionally unstable; emotionally unresponsive, and to have a negative world view. The theoretical rationale for these predictions in parental acceptance-rejection theory is presented.The article also describes an effective multimethod research strategy for studying the antecedents and consequences of parental acceptance-rejection and emotional abuse internationally. Finally, some of the worldwide social correlates of parental acceptance-rejection are discussed. For example evidence shows that the effects of parental rejection and emotional abuse are not limited simply to individual personality and behavior disorders, but they reach into such abstract domains as the religious beliefs of a people, their art, music, and other expressive behaviors. There now seems to be little doubt that the results of parental rejection as well as the mechanisms which produce or distort parental warmth work uniformly throughout our species, regardless of differences in race, nationality, time or other limiting conditions.