Page 35 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents
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The More It Happens, The Worse It Gets...
Further, it has been shown that encountering an object calls up an association to the behavior. Fazio (1995) has shown that the more association there is between an attitude and a behavior, the more potent the connection between attitude and behavior becomes.
Consider the child who “fights” visitation on a weekly basis and is then given into by one or both parents. The child is allowed to rehearse the behavior by complaining to the other parent that they don’t want to visit. The child is then allowed to avoid the behavior (often in the presence of the other parent who sits by helplessly while the child kicks and screams) because the alienating parent reinforces the avoidance, or the alienated parent becomes frustrated and gives up.
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