Rejection By This Parent Causes More Emotional Trauma

Both parents affect your personality, but rejection by one parent could be more critical for long-term development.

Being rejected by your father can do greater, long-lasting emotional damage than being rejected by your mother, research finds.

While rejection by either parent is traumatising for children, fathers often have higher prestige and/or power.

Therefore, children can take their father’s rejection harder.

Professor Ronald Rohner, co-author of the study, said:

“In our half-century of international research, we’ve not found any other class of experience that has as strong and consistent effect on personality and personality development as does the experience of rejection, especially by parents in childhood.

Children and adults everywhere — regardless of differences in race, culture, and gender — tend to respond in exactly the same way when they perceived themselves to be rejected by their caregivers and other attachment figures.”

 

Source: Read full story…spring.org.uk

 

The study was published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Review (Khaleque & Rohner, 2012).