Psychology: A Self-Teaching Guide

The accepting-rejecting dimensionalso consists of bipolar opposites. At

the one extreme, parents who manifest an accepting styleprovide the child with

unconditional love,meaning that love is not withdrawn when a child’s behav-

ior is unacceptable. The child is loved for being himself or herself, and affection

does not stop just because the parent is sometimes disappointed in something the

child has done. There is much confusion about this particular point. Uncondi-

tional love does not mean unconditional acceptance of all behavior. It is possible

to reject unacceptable behavior without rejecting the whole person.

Parents who manifest a rejecting styleprovide the child with either condi-

tional love or no love at all. Conditional loveis characterized by providing the

tokens of love (e.g., kisses, hugs, and praise) only when they have been earned by

certain behaviors such as getting good grades, doing chores, and being polite. A

parent who provides no love seldom, if ever, brings forth demonstrations of love

in either words or actions. The child acquires the impression that the parent

wishes he or she had never been born.

(a) Love that is not withdrawn when a child’s behavior is unacceptable is called

love.

(b) Parents who manifest a rejecting style provide the child with either love
or no love at all.
Answers: (a) unconditional; (b) conditional.

The two dimensions generate five distinct categories of parental style:

(1) authoritarian-accepting, (2) permissive-accepting, (3) authoritarian-rejecting,

Developmental Psychology: How Children Become Adults 169

Accepting

Rejecting

Authoritarian Permissive

Accepting-rejecting

dimension

Authoritarian-

permissive

dimension

The two dimensions of parental style.