Page 47 - How Children Learn to Hate Their Parents

The Message May Be More Important Than the Messenger:
The link between the communicator and the listener is rather apparent in the anecdote above, but credibility is not even a prerequisite for attitude change. It has been shown that even non- credible communicators can produce influence on listeners if the message given is consistent. The message may be remembered and the communicator, and the fact that the communicator was not credible may be forgotten (Cook & Flay, 1978; Grunder, 1978; Pratkanis, 1988). This is sometimes referred to as a “sleeper effect.” The fact that people will believe things without being able to remember where the heard it or who said it is important. Apparently, who said it and whether it was said by someone whose opinion is trusted fades before the message does.
In relation to children refusing to visit their parents, there can be many communicators around children delivering the same message. A parent’s boyfriend, girlfriend, or social friend who may have no credibility to a child whatsoever may repeat the same message the parent does in casual conversation around the child. If the message is consistent with other messages the child hears, the credibility of the source may be irrelevant and the message given another reinforcer of negative perceptions about the co-parent.
Credibility and trustworthiness go hand in hand. Here is where the subtle effects of parent’s statements to children may have powerful effects on their choice to visit or not visit with a parent.
The preferred parent often communicates to their children with “double messages.” Here are a few examples.
They will complain about the alienated parent, talk negatively about them, and then tell the child they “must have fun” when they are with the other parent. When the child does not visit, the alienated parent then says, “I try everything I can to get my child to visit and have a good time, but they just won’t go.”
They tell the child that they should see their mother or father, but then tell the child to call up the mother or father to tell them if they don’t want to go.
They do not actively dissuade the child to go to visitation, but they don’t persuade the child, either.
They tell the child or imply to the child the other parent is the cause of bad things (i.e. “We don’t have any cable anymore,” “I don’t have enough money to buy sneakers,” “We can’t go to Disneyworld”) but then say “Mommy (or Daddy) loves you, you have to visit with them.”
Research on trustworthiness and persuasiveness address these types of statements and indoctrinations. For instance trustworthiness in speakers increases when they argue against their own self-interests (Eagly, Wood & Chaiken, 1978). If a parent complains about the co- parent all week long, but then in effect argues against the position that the child should avoid the parent by saying “Now you must go visit your father because he loves you,” the original
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