| Abstract: | Abstract Parental alienation refers to a parent's attempts to distance a child from the child's other parent. We examined (1) the effects of “feeling alienation” upon college students' recollections of their childhood relationships, (2) the effects of “feeling alienation” on perceptions of adult parent-child relationships, and (3) the likelihood of alienation in intact and divorced families. A sample of undergraduates (N = 227) completed the Relationship Distancing Questionnaire and numerous other relationship questionnaires. Results suggested feeling alienation is inversely related to the quality of parent-child relationships during childhood and young adulthood and can be found in intact as well as divorced families. Findings also indicate parental conflict is a better predictor of whether alienation occurs than parents' marital status is. |
