title: Do Positive Feelings Hurt? Disaggregating Positive and Negative Components of Intergenerational Ambivalence.
abstract: Ambivalence has become an important conceptual development in the study of parent-adult child relations, with evidence highlighting that intergenerational relationships are characterized by a mix of positive and negative components. Recent studies have shown that ambivalence has detrimental consequences for both parents' and adult children's psychological well-being. The underlying assumption of this line of research is that psychological distress results from holding simultaneous positive and negative feelings toward a parent or child. The authors question this assumption and explore alternative interpretations by disaggregating the positive and negative dimensions commonly used to create indirect measures of intergenerational ambivalence. Data for the analyses were collected from 254 older mothers and a randomly selected adult child from each of the families. The findings suggest that the negative component is primarily responsible for the association between indirect measures of ambivalence and psychological well-being. Implications of these findings for the study of intergenerational ambivalence are discussed.
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Iowa State University, 2330 Palmer HDFS Building, Ames, IA 50011.
authors.forename: Megan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Gilligan
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Purdue University, 700 W. State St., West Lafayette IN 47907.
authors.forename: J Jill
authors.initials: JJ
authors.lastname: Suitor
authors.affiliation: Department of Sociology, Purdue University, 700 W. State St., West Lafayette IN 47907.
authors.forename: Scott
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Feld
authors.affiliation: Department of Human Development, MVR Hall, G44, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY 14850.
authors.forename: Karl
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Pillemer
keywords: ambivalence; intergenerational relationships; parent–child relationships