College Students' Attitudes Toward Relationships With Parents: A Five-Year Comparative Analysis

Abstract

Attitudes toward parents were measured for 5 independent samples of collegeaged undergraduate students (N = 575; mean age = 20.03 years, SD = 4.35, range = 17-54) between 1992 and 1996. Students responded to two statements regarding current attitudes toward their parents: “My relationship with my MOTHER can best be described as Great!, Good, Average, Poor, Awful!” and “My relationship with my FATHER can best be described as Great!, Good, Average, Poor, Awful!” A mixed 2 × 2 × 5 factorial analysis of variance with repeated measures on parents indicated attitudes (scale values) toward mothers were consistently higher than attitudes toward fathers. Attitudes toward both parents were in the average to good range. The results are generally consistent with those of earlier studies; however, some differences from findings of cross-cultural studies are discussed.