Perceived parental actions and evaluations of the family and its members

In the present study, 64 college students described how their parents acted toward one another and also evaluated their families and various family members. Many significant correlations were found. Perceptions of parents' actions toward one another were associated with respondents' ratings of their families and individual family members. Interestingly, for females, but not males, there was a strong relationship between perceptions of how their fathers interacted with their mothers and how their mothers interacted with their fathers. Such findings lend support to the notion that ongoing parental interactions, and not just traumatic events such as parental death or divorce, are related to how youth and young adults subsequently view their families and the individuals within them.