In a normative descriptive study of child and parent perceptions of hurtful messages from one another, 48 children (28 girls, 20 boys) between 7 and 10 years of age and their mothers recalled an instance when their feelings had been hurt, rated their emotions, made causal attributions, and described their responses. Hurt feelings were typically caused by disciplinary encounters or messages of disregard, and comprised a painful quality and other negative emotions. Among other findings, the more children and mothers reported feeling hurt, the more negative their self-perceptions, the more they felt rejected, and (for children) the more feelings about the other person changed. Discussion focused on the similarity between the child's and the mother's perceptions, the congruence with research on adults, and directions for future research.
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