Persuasion-- attempts to change other people’s
attitudes – is a common human activity, for good or ill. We see it at work in
evangelism and religious conversion, political campaigns, war propaganda,
advertising, and Jane Austen’s wonderful novel. Persuasion is an important part
of the work of parents and teachers, whose efforts to get children to share
their beliefs and attitudes are usually quite successful. By school age, most
children have adopted adult attitudes about toilet use, using words rather than
grabbing and hitting, physical modesty, politeness, and so on, although their
behaviors do not always reflect those attitudes.
Persuasion uses various means to cause changes in
attitude, with the further intention of behavior changes that can result from
new attitudes. Persuasion can involve simple repetition of ideas, modeling of
attitudes on those of loved or feared persons, and the provision of new
information that supports new attitudes. Cognitive dissonance due to new
information or experience may be at work in attitude change; when a person has
two contradictory beliefs, one may change in a direction that decreases
contradiction. Changes due to cognitive dissonance can seem paradoxical, as for
example a person who is paid a small amount to make a statement he does not
believe is more likely to change to greater belief than is be the case for a
person paid a large amount. It is notable that attitude changes in children and
adolescents can also occur in the absence of any persuasive attempts, as a
result of maturation of cognitive abilities and of unrelated experience.
Attitude changes are thus potentially the results of both persuasion and other
factors in an individual.
Attitude change may or may not be the deciding factor
in behavior change. Under the right circumstances, a person may behave in
changed ways determined by new attitudes. However, circumstances may work
against changed behavior, as when a newly-convinced vegan will starve unless he
or she eats meat. Behavior changes can also occur in the absence of actual
attitude change, because of the effects of bribes, threats, punishment, reward,
physical or social circumstances, and, for children and adolescents, the
occurrence of maturational changes like puberty.
Proponents of the idea of “parental alienation” (PA)
argue that when children of divorced couples refuse or resist contact with one
of the parents, this occurs because the other parent has used persuasive
techniques to change the attitudes of the child toward the avoided parent. PA
proponents claim that they have programs that will reverse this attitude change
and create positive attitudes and behavior toward the previously-avoided
parent. (It is notable, however, that PA discussions do not present objective
evidence that the avoiding child had a positive attitude toward the avoided
parent before the divorce; this is taken as given.)
In this post, I will discuss three ways in which PA is
related to persuasion and attitude change. The first is the view of PA
proponents that one parent can persuade a child to alter his or her attitude
toward the other parent in a negative direction, and that this single factor is
the cause of resistance or refusal of contact, unless physical abuse has been
present. The second connection between PA and persuasion has to do with the
methods PA advocates use to persuade courts to accept their views, to change
custody arrangements, and to order children into PA treatments at the expense
of the parent accused of persuading the child to dislike the other parent.
Third, the counter-persuasive techniques used in treatment programs like Family
Bridges will be examined.
1. 1. Can
a parent persuade a child to dislike and avoid the other parent? It would be foolish to claim that this could
not happen, although equally foolish to claim that such parental behavior can
be detected simply on the basis of child attitudes, or that such persuasion is
the sole factor determining resistance or refusal of contact.
Shifting alliances between parents and
children are characteristic of intact families as well as divorced families. A
parent may express an attitude toward the other parent as a part of
communication with a child or as a way of smoothing family functioning (“ Let’s
wait until after dinner to talk to your Dad about the bicycle—he’s tired when
he comes home from work”). Individual differences may be expressed as
communicated attitudes about the other parent (“I really can’t stand to watch
that boring show! See if Mom will watch with you, she likes that stuff”).
Maturational changes can affect attitudes and alliances, as for example when a
13-year-old girl begs her mother not to tell the father that she has her first
period, or when a mother presses her husband to have the “sex talk” with their
son.
Persuasion and efforts at
child attitude change are very much a part of the post-divorce family
functioning. Though some are happy to escape family conflict, children
generally object to the fact and consequences of divorce, with its frequent
multiple changes of house, school, neighborhood, income, parental mood, and
often in residents of the household (a new partner for a parent; stepsiblings;
sometimes a shared household with a grandparent or parent’s sibling). Divorced
parents usually make more or less effective efforts to persuade children to
more positive attitudes about their new circumstances. Attitude changes and
establishment of new family alliances and roles are the work of the first
couple of years after divorce.
Given that parents spend
time trying to influence child attitudes about family members, roles, and
circumstances in both intact and divorced families, it is almost certainly the
case that some divorced parents
successfully create negative attitudes in children toward former spouses.
However, a child’s resistance to or refusal of contact is not sufficient
evidence to claim that this has happened, and only circular reasoning can
suggest that the influence of one parent has created the attitude toward the
other. Not only would support for this argument require evidence that the
preferred parent had made unusual efforts to persuade the child against the
avoided parent; it would also be necessary to show that before the divorce, the
child’s attitude toward and relationship with the now-avoided parent had been
good, and this demonstration would require more than the claims of the avoided
parent.
PA advocates argue that children and
adolescents who avoid contact have no “rational” explanation that is
acceptable, unless there is substantiated evidence of physical abuse. They also privilege the mother and father
over any other actors in the scenario, sometimes including new spouses, but
often ignoring the roles played by grandparents, stepsiblings, and other involved
persons. Like adults, children and adolescents may avoid contact with a person
because of other involved individuals—an intimidating or overly manipulative
grandparent, a stepsibling who is living in the house and with whom the child
is expected to be friendly, a parent’s new partner who has decided to take a
strong family role and acts out rivalry with the child’s preferred parent.
Adolescents, in particular, may resent the choices forced on them by a visiting
schedule, the teams they cannot be on because they frequently miss games, the
parties they cannot attend, the weekend get-togethers for homework. These are
all reasonable explanations for avoiding visits to a parent, although they may
be difficult for the adolescent to explain and certainly do not fit the
physical abuse category insisted on by PA advocates.
In considering
adolescents’ resistance or refusal of contact, it is important to remember the
influence of puberty and burgeoning sexuality. Girls may want to avoid dealing
with menstruation at a father’s house; boys may feel that for a mother to see
evidence of a nocturnal emission would be deeply humiliating. For both sexes,
increased awareness of parents’ sexuality, especially if new partners are
present, may be deeply disturbing, and a very different experience than that of
teenagers living with “old married” parents. These examples and the ones above
do not deny the possibility that a parent has tried to create negative
attitudes toward the other parent, but they provide alternative or co-causal
explanations that need attention.
2. 2. How
do PA advocates use persuasion to win court approval for custody changes and
orders for PA-related treatments?
In the absence of any
acceptable empirical evidence basis, PA advocates have used common persuasive
devices like repetition and appeals to authority to bring PA concepts into the
courtroom. In addition, they have depended on rhetorical devices like the use
of analogies to create positive legal and judicial attitudes toward their
claims. Some frightening metaphors have played strong roles in cases where
courts were persuaded of the PA position. Here are some examples:
Alienation.
The term alienation originally referred to a
transfer of ownership or property rights. In the 18th and 19th
centuries, the concept of “alienation of affection” was used in lawsuits
against third parties who were claimed to have caused ruptures in marriages or
engagements by their behavior toward one of the partners (usually the wife).
Alienation of affection remains the foundation of suits in some states of the
United States. Property rights in a wife or child were legal arguments, and
provided the framework of early adoption laws. However, parents’ rights are no
longer seen as property rights, so the use of the term “parental alienation” depends on a questionable metaphor in which
the two entities in the analogy do not share most characteristics.
The word “estrangement”,
or a reference to the child’s resistance or refusal of contact, would avoid
this metaphor, but would be undesirable from the point of view of PA advocates,
as it would weaken their persuasive rhetoric.
Toxic.
A toxic substance causes
physical damage to an affected person, potentially resulting in injury or
death. Referring to behavior of divorced persons as “toxic” is a metaphorical
practice used to suggest that possible persuasion, claimed to cause changes in
a child’s attitude toward one parent, is in fact damaging to the child.
Although this has become a common analogy (e.g. “toxic stress”), in fact the
effects of toxins and of the posited parent behavior toward children have
little in common. To make this analogy a useful one, rather than just a
rhetorical device, PA proponents would need to show that children who resist or
refuse contact with one parent display damage in the form signs of personality
disorders or mental illness in adulthood, and that these problems have not been
caused by genetic or other factors. No such evidence has been presented, so the
“toxic” analogy remains a persuasive device rather than an appropriate way of
reasoning.
Pathogen.
A pathogen is properly
defined as a microorganism that can cause disease. This term is used
metaphorically when PA advocates refer to the posited parenting behavior that
causes resistance or refusal of contact as “pathogenic”. A child’s resistance or refusal is not in
itself a disease, and unless it can be demonstrated that such behavior is
followed predictably by mental disorders in later life, the metaphor is a
mistaken one. Nevertheless, the pathogen metaphor can be a powerfully
persuasive one when legal and judicial audiences do not examine rhetorical
devices with care.
Disruption of attachment.
Some PA advocates use the
term “attachment” to refer to any positive aspect of a child’s relationship with a parent. As clearcut
attachment behavior is characteristic of toddlers and not of older children or
adolescents, and as even preschoolers do not display this behavior much unless
distressed, the attachment metaphor is not appropriately applied here. It is
particularly the case that adolescent social and emotional development shifts
positive feeling toward peers and away from parents, so the analogy of
adolescent attitudes toward parents and toddler attachment behavior is a
mistaken one. The idea of “disruption of attachment”—that toddlers had both
short- and long-term ill effects of separation from familiar people—was a part
of John Bowlby’s early conceptualization of attachment, later much diminished
in importance, but certainly never applied to children of school age or
adolescents. This misleading metaphor has considerable rhetorical power,
however, because the idea of attachment is highly fashionable and generally
though erroneously accepted outside the field of child development as a
complete explanation of emotional development and especially of mental illness.
Brainwashing.
The “brainwashing”
metaphor, suggesting that mental processes, information, and attitudes can be
stripped away from an individual just as dirt can be washed from a surface, and
can be replaced in the same way, was a popular one in the 1950s and was used to explain why a small number of
American soldiers refused repatriation after a period of captivity in North
Korea. Subsequently, this metaphor has been used to explain adherence to
Scientology and similar belief systems, as well as commitment to terrorism. PA
advocates use the metaphor to suggest that children and adolescents can be made
subjects of “mind control” by a parent who intentionally alters their beliefs
and attitudes toward the other parent. Again, this is a powerfully rhetorical
device in the courtroom, but the analogy is mistaken because there is little
evidence that persuasion of any kind resembles “washing”. ( Recently, this
metaphor has been partially replaced by the metaphors of “programming” and
“deprogramming”, but these do not carry the persuasive punch of “brainwashing”,
with its imlicatons of defecting soldiers.)
3. 3. Can
children be persuaded to drop their resistance and refusal and behave
affectionately and positively toward avoided parents?
PA proponents describe
treatment programs like Family Bridges as “psychoeducational” and argue that
the information about persuasion offered to children in treatment can indeed
persuade them and change negative to positive attitudes. Assuming that one
parent has persuaded the child to take up negative attitudes toward the other
parent, practitioners of these programs claim to counter the parental
persuasion and reverse the attitude change.
Published reports of
outcomes of PA treatments have not met standards required for outcome research,
and cannot be used to argue that the treatments are effective. For example, the
published reports do not show how outcomes of PA treatment programs compare
with outcomes when children are either not treated or treated by some
conventional psychotherapeutic approach. Given that school-age children and
adolescents change in many ways because of maturation, PA proponents need to
show that the outcomes they report would not have happened over time simply
because of maturation and ordinary experiences.
Be that as it may,
however, it is questionable whether the effects of the treatment are actually
attitude changes subsequent to persuasive efforts and new information through
videos and discussion. Reports of adolescents who have experienced these
programs suggest that behavior change (with or without attitude change) may
have resulted from threats to send the child to wilderness camp or a
residential treatment center, to send the preferred parent to prison, or to
charge the preferred parent additional fees because the child was not
cooperative. This seems more probable than the claim that an entrenched
attitude, created by months of intentional persuasion by one parent, could be
altered in a few days by watching videos. Whether observed behavior changes are
or not due to persuasion and attitude change is one of many unanswered
questions about PA, all of which should be given careful consideration by
courts.