Mother-blaming among college students.
The purpose of this study was to examine the tendency for mother-blaming among college students to determine if such a bias existed outside the clinical profession. The subjects were 49 men and 50 women at a small private university, who were asked to attribute responsibility for 45 behavioral and personal-psychological problems to one of the following targets: Father, Individual, Mother, and Society. Analysis showed Individual receiving most attributions, followed by Society, Mother, and Father, in that order. Relatively more problems are blamed on Mother than on Father, with a tendency to blame mothers for emotional problems such as dependency and shyness and fathers for behavioral-physiological problems such as child abuse and alcoholism. Intercorrelations of the number of attributions made to different targets clearly suggest that there are parent-blamers, society-blamers, and individual-blamers. Implications of blame attribution for mental health are acknowledged.
Der-Karabetian
A
A
Behavioral Science Department, University of La Verne, CA 91750.
Preciado
M
M
D002648:Child; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology; D005220:Fathers; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000209:etiology*; D009035:Mothers; D012938:Social Perception; D013334:Students / Q000523:psychology*