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Popular images of grandparents: Examining young adults’views of their closest grandparents
Author(s) -
BOON SUSAN D.,
BRUSSONI MARIANA J.
Publication year - 1998
Publication title -
personal relationships
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.81
H-Index - 83
eISSN - 1475-6811
pISSN - 1350-4126
DOI - 10.1111/j.1475-6811.1998.tb00162.x
Subject(s) - grandparent , psychology , developmental psychology , social psychology
Young adults ( N = 171) first judged the extent to which 13 stereotyped images of grandparents typified their perceptions of their own closest grandparent and then judged the extent to which they believed the average other viewed these same stereotypes as characteristic of his or her closest grandparent. Compared to those whose relationships with their closest grandparent were emotionally distant, participants who felt close to their closest grandparent reported significantly more favorable own grandparent attitudes. In addition, stereotypes that portrayed the grandparent as loving and supportive were especially diagnostic of the emotional quality of respondents’relationships with their closest grandparents. Comparing judgments of own grandparents with judgments of the average other's grandparent, there was no evidence of own‐grandparent superiority among not‐close participants’responses. In contrast, close participants demonstrated own‐grandparent superiority in their judgments of negative, but not positive, stereotypes.