History and Goals

Mission of the Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection

The mission of the Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection is threefold:

To conduct and promote basic and applied research on issues surrounding interpersonal acceptance-rejection, with special emphasis on the form of parent-child relationship called parental acceptance-rejection.
To formulate and implement practical intervention, prevention, educational, and other such applications pertinent to these issues.
To foster and encourage knowledge-sharing by establishing the Center as the world's pre-eminent information resource center regarding interpersonal acceptance and rejection. Information will be obtained through the collection of existing works as well as through the funding of new research and applications, the results of which will be documented and maintained by the Center.

Fact Sheet
Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection

The Center was founded in 1977 and recognized in 1981 by the UConn Board of Trustees as a Center to support research and applications on the antecedents, consequences, and other correlates of interpersonal acceptance and rejection, especially parental acceptance-rejection and acceptance-rejection in intimate adult relationships, peer relationships, and other interpersonal relationships.

International epicenter for research on interpersonal acceptance-rejection (See the extensive Center bibliography here)

Approximately 400 research articles and nine books published by affiliates
Nearly 300 papers and presentations made by affiliates
Seven external and 25 internal grants received by the Center
More than a fifteen active linkages with ongoing research programs in other sites internationally
Archive of approximately 80 data sets from around the world
17 media interviews printed in local, regional, and national publications just this year, including one television talk show
Results of research conducted through the Center noted and discussed in magazines (e.g., Family Circle, Child, Parents Magazine, Parenting Magazine, and others), newspapers, and on radio talk shows throughout the U.S.A. and internationally (e.g., India, Croatia, New Zealand, and Canada)
Copyrights on tests and instruments translated into more than 30 languages worldwide

Growing Visibility/Demands on the Center

Approximately 375 inquiries for information, evaluation, and assistance by scholars and practitioners each year from more than 30 nations including the U.S.A. (The volume of requests is beginning to exceed the capability of the Center to respond in a timely manner) Areas of inquiry include:
Request from Public Defenders to assess the parenting background and psychological adjustment of adolescent shooters in high schools and elsewhere
Request from "father's rights" organizations in U.S.A. and Canada for information about the importance of father love to help counter the perceived gender bias exclusively favoring mothers in custody battles
Request for information and procedures for evaluating local, statewide, and international parent education programs
Request to educate family-law attorneys, judges, and others on the implications of parental acceptance-rejection (for foster parenting, adoption, and custody evaluations)
Requests by clinicians for training in parental acceptance-rejection theory, evidence, and measures to be used in clinical practice, especially clinical intake and exit evaluations
Requests by educational psychologists for research results on the effects of teacher acceptance-rejection on children's academic performance.

Focus on significant social problems

Child and adult mental health
Substance abuse
Conduct problems, behavior disorders, and delinquency
School violence
Care of the elderly
Child welfare, including custody, parent education, foster care, & adoption
Healthy child development

Important contributor to graduate education

About twenty doctoral dissertations and master's theses conducted within the Center
More than fifty theses and dissertations outside the University of Connecticut, and the number continues to grow
Multidisciplinary relevance, including in Family Studies, Psychology, Nursing, Education, Psychiatry, Anthropology, and other Schools, Departments, and Programs

Currently involved in intensive effort to step up to a higher level

Expanding the Center's endowment (through UConn Foundation)
Grant writing
Multidisciplinary research efforts
Hosting post doctoral scholars from diverse disciplines and nations, including Japan, Korea, Turkey, Bangladesh, and elsewhere

Needs of the Center to help assure long-term viability

Permanent endowed chair to become Director
Permanent Administrative Assistant
Funds for pre-doctoral and post doctoral Fellows

History and Goals

The Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection (CSPAR) was founded by Ronald P. Rohner Ph.D., in 1977. The Center was authorized as an official entity within the University of Connecticut by the Board of Trustees in 1981. Rohner has served as the Center's Director since its inception. The Center is a non-profit educational and scientific organization dedicated to national and international, interdisciplinary research on parental acceptance-rejection, child maltreatment, and their antecedents, correlates, and consequences for humans everywhere. The Center is also a place where University faculty, visiting scholars, and promising students can be supported in their research activities. Researchers, clinicians, and child protection agencies in the USA and many other countries have made use of the research and assessment instruments developed through the Center in the past 30 years. These instruments include the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (PARQ), PARQ-Control, Intimate Adult Relationship Questionnaire (IARQ), Personality Assessment Questionnaire (PAQ), Physical Punishment Questionnaire (PPQ), Teacher Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire (TARQ), and Teacher's Evaluation of Student's Conduct (TESC). Some of the instruments are now available in more than 30 languages of the world.

Several hundred articles, books, chapters, and dissertations have been produced using one or a combination of the Center's instruments. Many of these are documented in the Parental Acceptance-Rejection Bibliography. Additionally, the Center's computerized PC scoring program (PARSCORE IV) is available for scoring all versions of the instruments. The Handbook for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection 4th Edition contains all of these self-report instruments, information about the validity and reliability of the instruments, along with many other methodological and conceptual elements to help researchers and practitioners deal with issues of parental acceptance and rejection. The Handbook is an important tool for researchers and others to help build a cumulative body of knowledge about issues surrounding interpersonal acceptance-rejection and child maltreatment.

The Center archives an extensive body of data from throughout the USA and internationally. Currently this archive includes 22 data sets from different samples throughout the USA, including data on most of the major American ethnic groups (e.g., Blacks, Hispanics, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and White working class and middle class Americans). Additionally, the Center houses another 28 data sets from many nations including the former Czechoslovakia (where the Czech government adopted the PARQ and the PAQ for official research in that formerly socialist state), Korea, Mexico, India, Egypt, Puerto Rico, Newfoundland, Nigeria, Peru, Sweden, Turkey, St. Kitts, West Indies, and elsewhere. Finally, the Center acts as a repository for eight holocultural (i.e., cross-cultural survey) data sets on the antecedents, consequences, and correlates of parental acceptance and rejection.

Two of the instruments listed above (the PARQ and PAQ) were mandated by Federal Court order in 1993 to be used in all foster placement and adoption proceedings in the State of Connecticut. Moreover, the instruments have also been used in a variety of clinical-practice settings, parent education programs (e.g., the PARQ has been incorporated into Glendon Association's "Compassionate Childrearing Parent Education Program" in 30 States and Costa Rica, and into the Center for the Improvement of Child Caring's "Black Parenting Programs"), as well as for parent education program-evaluation protocols in many States and Provinces of Canada.

About the Director

Ronald P. Rohner, Ph.D., is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, the American Psychological Society, and the American Anthropological Association . He is also a member of the National Council on Family Relations. He is former president of the Board of Directors of Natchaug Psychiatric Hospital, past President of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research, and has served on the Executive Council of the International Association for Cross-Cultural Psychology, as well as on the Board of Directors of the Connecticut Association for the Prevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. He was Professor of Anthropology at the University of Connecticut from 1964 through 1995. He was also a Senior Research Scientist at the Boys Town Center for the Study of Youth Development in Washington D.C. from 1975-1977. During this time he authored nine books and more than 200 articles and other publications. He is now Professor Emeritus of Family Studies and Anthropology in the School of Family Studies at the University of Connecticut, Storrs. Here, he continues to act as Director of the Ronald and Nancy Rohner Center for the Study of Parental Acceptance and Rejection.