The Love/Hate Checklist: a further report.

Abstract

The Love/Hate Checklist was introduced by Parish (1) as an effective index of love and/ or hate based on checked adverbs descriptive of the perceived actions of people toward one another. Specifically, the Love/Hate Checklist reliably assessed actions by parents as perceived by their adult children and was judged to be valid since its scores regarding both parents' actions were directly related to adult children's self-concepts. As noted by Parish (11, however, additional validation research is still needed so 126 undergraduate college students from intact families (n = 105) and divorced families (n = 21) were asked to describe on the Love/Hate Checklist how theit Lacher5 act toward their mothers and vice versa. Since divorced parents are often described as acllng more hatefully toward one another than peers from intact families (2), the hate score on [he checklist describing parents' actions from divorced families was hypothesized to be significantly hlgher than the score describing actions of parents from intact f a d e s . Respondents who voluntarily participated in the present study were enrolled in educational psychology classes at a large midwestern university. This sample included 39 men and 87 women, primarily from white middle-class backgrounds. They ranged in age from 18 yr. to 36 yr., with an average age of 22.4 yr. The LoveIHate Checklist they completed consists of 45 loving and 45 adverbs and asked the respondents to select 25 words which best describe how their acts toward t h e i r . On Form 1 the target was father acts toward mother, while on Form 2 the target was mother acts toward father. Number of words checked was recorded. The order of forms was counterbalanced. O n the back of the checklist respondents indicated their sex and age, and whether they were from intact or divorced families. To compare individuals from intact and divorced families, two t tests (using separate variance estimates) were performed. How mothers were perceived to act toward fathers varied significantly as a function of the respondents' familial configurations (t = 7.54, df = 24, p < ,001); those from divorced families (M, = 17.57) checked significantly more adverbs than students from intact families (M, = 2.58). Regarding how fathers were perceived to act toward mothers, similar significant differences were found (t = 6.20, df = 24, p < ,001). Again, respondents from divorced families (M, = 17.76) checked significantly more adverbs than those from intact families (M, = 3.48). In this sample the Love/Hate Checklist score seems to have discerned the predicted differences in perceptions of parents' or hateful actions which apparently vary as a function of parents' marital status (~ .e . , intact or divorced). Such findings support the notion that the Lovemate Checklist provides predictive validity and may be useful to psychologists and counselors.