Page 33 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

How Self-Awareness Influences Attitude-Behavior Connections:
Research suggests that experimenters can induce people to connect their attitudes to subsequent behavior by making them more self-aware. For instance, students who were placed in front of a mirror and hearing their tape recorded voices were less likely to cheat on tests then those who were not (Diener & Wallbom, 1976). Seventy-one percent of students who were not made aware of their actions cheated, versus seven percent who did not when made self-aware or self-conscious of their actions.
Visitation refusal is also a process by which children become self-aware and conscious of their actions in many different ways. An elaboration of one such scenario proceeds as follows:
A child is angry at a parent for leaving home or for arguing with the other parent, or for otherwise disappointing them.
They do not see that parent for periods of time (in between visits).
They complain about that parent, perhaps because they assume the parent doesn’t want to see them.
They hear the other parent complain about the rejected parent.
The process of complaining makes the child more aware of the attitude “I shouldn’t see that parent. They are bad.”
The child is prevented from seeing that parent because they are allowed to refuse visitation, or because they think it will please the alienating parent.
The more lapsed contact, the more the child’s attitude is self-justified by the act of complaining.
As this process proceeds the link between attitude (“I don’t want to see my father. My father is bad.”) becomes more predictive of the behavior (“I refuse to see my father.”)
Peers or family members who elicit the attitude (People ask: “Why don’t you see your father.” The child answers: “My father is bad.”) further strengthen the attitude-behavior association.
Gibbons (1978), Froming and others (1982) showed that making people self-aware promotes consistency between their words and their deeds. The attitude, stamped in by the preferred parent, and assisted by lapsed contact, therefore becomes a powerful predictor of the behavior to continue refusing visitation and ultimately potentially getting to the point of expressing
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