Parents and their children are not always going to agree on who their children decide to marry.
Due to different ideas what constitutes a desirable mate, there can be considerable conflict, While most families are able to work through these conflicts without too much friction, research has identified certain manipulation strategies that parents and children often use in disagreements over mating choices.
Last week, I talked about research describing some of the strategies that parents may rely on to influence the mating choices of their children. But what about when children are dealing with parents who either disapprove of their mating choices or try to persuade their children to marry someone of their choosing?
A research paper study published in Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences describes some of the different manipulations that children may use to influence their parents to accept their choices. Written by Menelaos Apostolou of the University of Nicosia in Cyprus, the paper describes three studies involving over a thousand participants recruited from cities across Cyprus. The participants were presented with different scenarios involving conflicts between parents and children over mating choices and the ways they would use to persuade parents to accept those choices.
To read more,, check out my new Psychology Today blog post.
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