Relation between Parental Interpersonal Styles and Their Children's Psychological Distance

Abstract

The relationship between parental past-life styles of varying degrees of closeness or distance to others and children's interpersonal distance patterns was investigated by means of the History of Interpersonal Distance (Mottola, 1968) scale and two measures based on Kuethe's (1962) social schemata technique. Two groups of children, a clinic population of 33 Ss and a normal group of 203 Ss, and at least the mothers (sometimes also the fathers) of each child participated. Comparisons between the two groups were based on matched samples of 33 children in each group. Normal children exhibited on some measures a pattern of psychological distance opposite from that of their parents of the same sex. The disturbed children tended to have a psychological distance that differed from that of the composite of both of their parents. There was no evidence of a greater correlation between child and same-sex parent for disturbed children than for normals. However, there was some indication of a greater degree of social closeness in the history of parents of normal children compared with the parents of the disturbed group. Normal and disturbed children did not produce different distance patterns.

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