Perceptions of parents: A measure of adolescents' feelings about their parents

The majority of measures that assess the parentchild relationship are based on overt parental behavior. Given that a substantial percentage of youth do not have contact with their father, these measures often lead to missing data due to paternal absence. We describe a series of four studies that led to the development of the Perceptions of Parents (POP) measure, which can be completed by younger and older adolescents even if they do not have contact with their mother or their father. The measure was found to be sound psychometrically. Two factors, positive affect and negative affect, emerged for adolescents ' perceptions of their mother and father. Scores on these factors were meaningfully related to adolescents' psychological adjustment. We discuss connections between adolescents' perceptions of their parents and therapeutic interventions for adolescents who are psychologically distressed. Key Words. adolescents, affect, feelings, parents, perceptions. The assessment of parent-child relationships has not kept pace with changes that have occurred in family constellations over the past three decades. Whereas 87% of children were reported to live in two-parent households in 1970, approximately 61% of children in the United States younger than 18 years old lived with both of their biological parents in 1990 (Roberts, 1993). This figure varies according to race and ethnicity. Approximately 26% of African American children live with both of their biological parents. The majority of children and adolescents who do not live with both of their biological parents live with their biological mother and have some type of contact with their biological father. Seltzer (1991) found that over 70% of children who do not live with their biological father have some type of contact with him, but nearly 30% did not have any contact with their biological father. Most studies of children's perceptions of their parents have focused on older adolescents' and young adults' retrospective reports of the parentchild relationship (reviewed in Burbach & Borduin, 1986; Gerlsma, Emmelkamp, & Arrindell, 1990). Most of these studies have used measures such as the Children's Report of Parental Behavior Inventory-Revised (CRPBI-R; Schaefer, 1965; Schludermann & Schludermann, 1970) or the Parental Bonding Inventory (PBI; Parker, Tupling, & Brown, 1979), which assess adolescents' perceptions of their father and mother. By design, these measures assess overt behavior. Thus, these measures cannot be completed for a parent who does not (or did not) have face-to-face contact with the adolescent. Because of this measurement design, less is known about adolescents' cognitions and emotions related to their absent parent, especially absent fathers (Phares, 1996). It would be helpful to have a measure that could be given to adolescents that would assess their cognitions (i.e., mental representations) and emotions related to their father and mother, regardless of the physical presence or absence of the parents. LINES OF RESEARCH Two separate but related lines of research are relevant to this investigation. A number of investigations into cognitive and affective schema might relate to adolescents' perceptions of their parents. From a psychodynamic perspective, the large literature on attachment theory also might relate to adolescents' perceptions of their parents. Cognitions and Emotions Based on research into cognitive and affective schema in adults, it is not unreasonable to expect that adolescents who do not have contact with a parent still might have emotional reactions to that parent (e.g., Aron, Aron, Tudor, & Nelson, 1991). These relational schemas are "cognitive structures representing regularities in patterns of interpersonal relatedness" (Baldwin, 1992, p. 461). Relational schemas of others are based on cognitive and affective components, which, according to Baldwin, can be formed from direct interactions or information about the other person. …