Corey Chorba, a junior at Penn State Worthington Scranton, recently presented at the 38th Annual Meeting of the Society for Cross-Cultural Research (SCCR) in Las Vegas.
Mr. Chorba, a Human Development and Family Studies (HDFS) major, has been doing undergraduate research with Dr. Parminder Parmar, an assistant HDFS professor who had asked him to make the presentation and presented with him.
The presentation was "Parental Acceptance in Childooh, Intimate Partner Attachment and Psychological Well-Being Among College Students in the U.S."
"The main goal of this research was to explore relationships among perceived maternal and paternal acceptance-rejection in childhood, intimate partner attachment, and psychological adjustment among college students in the US." Mr. Chorba explained.
"It is ground-breaking research in the field of parental acceptance, rejection and adult attachment," Dr. Parmar added. The results show that the more accepting men and women remembered both their mothers and fathers to have been when the respondents were children, the better their psychological adjustment. The results also show that for males their psychological adjustment and father's love for females is better predictor of intimate partner attachment for college students.
Dr. Parmar has been involved with this research for past several years and said it has been conducted in several countries throughout the world.
"Cross- Cultural Research: The Journal of Comparative Social Science" published a special issue in February, 2008 that has two research articles published by Dr. Parmar - "Relations Among Spouse Acceptance, Remembered Parental Acceptance in Childhood and Psychological Adjustment Among Married Adults in India" and "Relations Among Spouse Acceptance, Remembered Parental Acceptance in Childhood, and Psychological Adjustment Among Married Adults in Kuwait."
The recent Annual Meeting of SCCR was Mr. Chorba's first in presenting at the national level, but it is one he hopes to repeat, as he plans to continue doing this type of research while completing his studies at Penn State Worthington Scranton. His goal is to be able to present more of his findings at next year's SCCR event in Alberquerque, New Mexico.
"I enjoyed the experience a lot," he said, "as I got to meet some very well-known people in my field of study, such as Dr Murray Strauss, Dr. Ronald Rohner and Dr. Abdul Khaleque, both of whom have done a lot of cross-cultural research."
SCCR was founded in 1971 and is a multi-disciplinary organization of about 150 members. All of its members are professionals and students from social science fields and related fields, who share a common devotion to the conduct of cross-cultural research. The purpose of the Society is to support and encourage interdisciplinary, comparative research that has, as its objective, the establishment of scientifically described generalizations about human behavior."
