actually interacted with children, only with the programming on the computer. Findings of the study were said to be in accord with hypotheses.
The authors applied the findings of the study to dysfunctional parent-child relationships suggesting that in these relationships, mothers are reacting to their own low perceptions of power. This reaction is typically one of negative emotion and physical arousal.
If the child reacts in an adversarial (unresponsive) way to those control behaviors which the mother uses to reclaim power perceived as lost, the mother's defensive reaction intensifies. The result of this is that the mother uses coercion more and more until it reaches near tyrannical proportions. In other words, the pattern of controlling behavior, a pattern that is very typical of dysfunctional or maladaptive parent-child relationships, is, at least in part, caused by mothers' power perceptions and children's unresponsiveness to coercive efforts designed to restore debilitative power perceptions.
Kobak and Hazan (1991) examined expectancies for attachment figures in marriage using Bowlby's concept of "working models" as the conceptual foundation of the research. The authors noted that most of the existing literature in the area had focused on how new relationships are assimilated into one's pre-existing set of expectations for attachment figures. However, Kobak and Hazan pointed out that what had not been much examined was the extent to which one's set of expectancies for attachment figures (working model) accommodates to the current partner.
In an effort to examine the accommodation dimension of working models, Kobak and Hazan collected data from 40 married couples. There was some variance in couples' ages (24 to 46 years) and the average length of the marriage was about seven years. Most were white, middle or middle-lower income dyads.
Several measures were collected in the study. These included measurements of...