cROSS - NATIONAL COMPARISONS OF ATTITUDES TOWARD DIFFERENT AGE - RELATED ROLES, e.g. - THE MOTHER - IN - LAW | ||||
| مجلة بحوث کلية الآداب . جامعة المنوفية | ||||
| Article 7, Volume 7, Issue 27, December 1996, Page 37-48 PDF (472.49 K) | ||||
| Document Type: المقالة الأصلية | ||||
| DOI: 10.21608/sjam.1996.140304 | ||||
 View on SCiNiTO | ||||
| Author | ||||
| Ramadan A. Ahmed, William M. Davis* | ||||
| colleg-new york u.s.a | ||||
| Abstract | ||||
| he question that arose was concerned with attitudes toward the mother-in-law. It asked whether these negative images of the mother-in-law were the same across cultures? In order to arrive at an answer, it was decided to use a figure-placement task. (Adler, 1978; Craubert & Adler, 1982) to measure projeced social distances as an indicator of the respondents’ attitudes. It had long been established that interpersonal space could serve as a protection against threat, either to the subjects’ physical integrity or to the self-esteem (Dosey & Meisels, 1969). On the other hand, Little (1965) and Merhabian (1968) found that distance was a significant index of the subject’s positive or negative attitudes toward a specific object. In addition, in a study by Adler and Iverson (1975) it was verified that there was a clear parallel between the physical interpersonal spacing in the laboratory situation and the projected social distances in response to ascriptions of the stimulus persons. The present study examines the schemata relating to several members of a family, such as ”Mother,” ”Father,” ”Mother-in-Law” and ”Father-in-Law.” Data by subjects from different parts of the world are compared to those by US subjects. The present paper reports the comparisons of the responses by Kuwaiti, Sudanese and US-participants. In, these countries different patterns of mate selection exist. For example, it is frequently the custom in Arab countries for parents to select the spouses for their children, while in the US men and women choose spouses for themselves. Would these behavior patterns influence attitudes toward family members? In the present paper the comparisons not only involve an overall anlysis, but focus on comparing the data from only two countries atone time for a more precise evaluation. Following the pattern of previous studies (Sechrest, Fay, Zaidi & Flores, 1973) the subjects were students who attended psychology and science classes at various 38 In a recent paper Usha Kumar (1984) discussed the relationship between mother- in law, son and daughter-inlaw and described’ the triadic relationship in an Indian Hindu joint family. While in North America, Great Britain, and other Western societies jokes about the mother-in-law are common, Kumar (1984) noted that such jokes are extremely rare in Hindu society, where such relationships are considered as serious business. On the other hand, Radcliffe-Brown (1950) had observed that research on the relationships of mother-in-Iaw/daughterin- law interactions had been neglected across cultures. Yet surveys in Western societies reported that the mother-inlaw was the most disliked of all relatives (Duvall, 1984). In more recent years, Fischer (1983) compared the interpersonal relationships of muther-in-Iaw/daughter-inlaw with to those of mother/daughter with regard to the orientation around the child (i, e. how the birth of a baby affected these relationships). However, even before the birth of the grandchild strained relationships with in-laws were apparent. In the Hindu family there existed, in the present setting, a coalition of the mother with her son aginst the daughter-in-law Kumar (1984) wrote that ” the basic assumption of the triad theory is that the relationship < /span> between any pair of actors can best be understood by examining their conjoint relationship with a significant third party. In the relationship between affinal relatives, the connecting spouse is likely to be the significant third party. Thus we may unde: ~tand the relationship between a daughter-in-law and a mother-in-law by examining the relationship of each to the man between them.” (p.Ll) These reports are examples, which illustrate some sources of the negative reputation of the image of the mother-inlaw | ||||
| Keywords | ||||
| THE MOTHER ' In ' LA | ||||
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