Refers conceptually to the absence or significant withdrawal of warmth, affection, care, comfort, concern, nurturance, support, or simply love by
parents and other
attachment figures toward children and adults, and by the presence of a variety of physically and psychologically hurtful behaviors and emotions. Worldwide, rejection tends to take four principal forms: (1) emotional
coldness and the absence or withdrawal of behaviorally expressed
affection; (2)
hostility and
aggression (3)
indifference and
neglect and, (4)
undifferentiated rejection. The terms parental acceptance and rejection tend to connote positive and negative behaviors, respectively. In everyday American English the phrase "parental rejection" implies bad parenting and sometimes even bad people. In cross-cultural and ethnic research, however, one must try hard not to make such value judgments. Rather, one should attempt to view the phrase as being
descriptive of parents' and others' behavior, not judgmental or evaluative. This is because parents in about 25% of the world's societies tend to reject their children (as defined in PARTheory), though they generally behave in ways they regard as culturally appropriate. (See
acceptance;
culture; the
warmth dimension of parenting)
