Parents do not always find their children’s mate choices to comply with their own preferences and engage in manipulation in order to drive away undesirable boyfriends and girlfriends (Apostolou 2013; Apostolou and Papageorgi 2014). This indicates that individuals frequently face a situation wherein they do not meet the approval of their partners’ parents, who try to drive them away. This can undermine the relationship and compromise their reproductive success. To avoid this situation, individuals engage in counter manipulation in order to change their prospective parents-in-law’s minds to accept them as mates for their children. The purpose of this research is to identify and assess the manipulation tactics individuals employ for this purpose.

Manipulation in Mate Choice

Parents and children are not genetically identical, which means that their genetic interests converge but also diverge (Trivers 1974). One area where this is manifested is mate choice (Apostolou 2008; Buunk et al. 2008; Trivers 1974). In particular, prospective mates via their offspring will make different fitness contributions to each party. For example, the coefficient of relatedness of parents to children is 0.50, but the coefficient of relatedness of grandparents to grandchildren is only half as much (0.25). This means that parents obtain fewer genetic benefits from a prospective in-law of high genetic quality than their children do from a prospective mate of high genetic quality (Apostolou 2008; Buunk et al. 2008). Therefore, although both parents and children prefer an in-law and a mate, respectively, to be of good genetic quality, children place more emphasis on this trait than their parents (Apostolou 2008). Consistent with this, a number of studies have found that more value is ascribed to the looks (a proxy of genetic quality) of a prospective mate than to the looks of a prospective in-law (Apostolou 2008; Buunk et al. 2008; Perilloux et al. 2011). Pulchritude is not the only area of disagreement: family background, religious background, and personality are other areas where this conflict is manifested (Apostolou 2008; Apostolou et al. 2014; Buunk et al. 2008; Perilloux et al. 2011).

The divergence between in-law and mate preferences leads to asymmetrical compromises between parents and children and eventually to conflict (Apostolou 2011). In particular, mate choice involves compromises because individuals are constrained by their own mate value and cannot attract mates who have higher scores on all traits. Accordingly, in order to acquire a mate who scores higher on a trait they desire (e.g., good looks), they make compromises on traits they desire less (e.g., good family background). Such compromises are not optimal for parents, who value beauty less and good family background more than their children (Apostolou 2008; Buunk et al. 2008). To investigate the trade-offs required of parents and children, one study asked parents to design an ideal spouse for their children, and their children an ideal spouse for themselves (Apostolou 2011). Participants were given a budget of mate points and were asked to allocate them across several desirable traits. Children allocated fewer points to traits such as similarity in religion and good family background in order to assign more points to exciting personality and beauty. Their parents, on the other hand, allocated fewer points to exciting personality and beauty in order to assign more points to good family background and similarity in religion.

Accordingly, because of the trade-offs involved in mate choice and because in-law and mate preferences differ, children frequently choose mates who do not appeal to their parents. For instance, they may choose individuals who are physically attractive, notwithstanding their social standing and family background, a compromise that their parents would find undesirable. When two parties have conflicting interests, manipulation is likely to emerge, whereby one party attempts to change the behavior of the other in a way that best serves its own interests (Buss 1987, 1992; Buss and Shackelford 1997; Buss et al. 1987; de Miguel and Buss 2011). Accordingly, parents are expected to engage in manipulation in order to influence their children to make mate choices that are more compatible with their parents’ own interests (Apostolou 2013).

Sussman (1953:80) reported that parents employ means such as “cajolery, persuasion, appeals to loyalty, and threats” in order to influence their children’s mating behavior. Another study found that ethnic Chinese parents in the USA attempt to create environments in which their children can meet other individuals of Chinese descent and, therefore, of desirable background (Ikels 1985). In a more comprehensive study of manipulation, Apostolou (2013) identified twelve tactics that parents employ on their children and four tactics that they employ on their children’s prospective mates (see also Apostolou and Papageorgi 2014).

In more detail, when parents find their daughters and sons engaging in undesirable relationships, they attempt to terminate these relationships by manipulating their children or their children’s mates. For instance, in the former case, they advise their children against the relationship; they attempt to bribe them to dissolve the relationship; or they try to match them with different mates. In the latter case, they threaten their children’s mates; they are rude to them; or they try to find out things to use against them (Apostolou 2013).

Parental manipulation can put a strain on their children’s relationship, which can undermine it. Such manipulation can indeed be effective in weakening an undesirable relationship (Apostolou et al. 2015). This benefits parents, but not children, who have an interest in continuing the relationship. Therefore, in order to promote their own interests, children engage in counter manipulation to persuade their parents to change their minds. Children have a battery of manipulation tactics they employ on their parents to make them accept their mates (Apostolou 2015). For example, children try to show their parents that their mates are right for them and make them happy.

In the same vein, parental manipulation hurts children’s mates, who have an interest in continuing the relationship. Hence, individuals will also engage in counter manipulation in order to change their prospective parents-in-law’s minds to accept them as mates for their children. Since no research effort has been made to study the manipulation that individuals employ on their prospective parents-in-law, we do not know what kinds of manipulation individuals use on their prospective mate’s parents, and how effective this manipulation is.

Overall, when parents do not approve of their children’s mate choices, a situation arises in which three parties have conflicting interests: parents, children, and children’s mates. Manipulation then arises as each party tries to promote its own interests: parents try to manipulate their children and their children’s mates to terminate the relationship, children try to manipulate their parents into accepting their mates, and the children’s partners try to manipulate their prospective parents-in-law to accept them as mates for their daughters and sons. Since little is known about manipulation in the last scenario, this research aims to close this gap in our knowledge by (a) identifying the different acts that individuals use to manipulate their prospective parents-in-law, (b) classifying these acts into broader manipulation tactics, (c) assessing which tactics are more likely and which are less likely to be used, (d) measuring the effectiveness of these tactics in altering prospective parents-in-law’s minds, (e) examining whether individuals have an accurate perception of the effectiveness of their manipulation on their parents-in-law, and (f) examining sex and age effects on the use and effectiveness of the identified tactics.

Study 1

The purpose of this study is to identify the different acts that individuals use in order to manipulate their prospective parents-in-law.

Methods

Participants

Two research assistants were employed to recruit volunteers to take part in a research about family relationships (no payment was given). Participants had to be at least 18 years old. A snowball sampling technique was used: the research assistants recruited several participants and then obtained names of others who might be interested in participating in the study. The study took place in the Republic of Cyprus, and participants came predominantly from its two largest cities, Nicosia and Limassol. The data collection process lasted approximately 1 month. The participants were asked to sign a consent form and then they were given the survey. The participants were instructed to complete the questionnaire privately. Upon completion, they put the questionnaire in an unmarked envelope and sealed it. The research was approved by the University of Nicosia Ethics Committee.

In this study 106 Greek-Cypriots took part (51 women, 55 men). The mean age of women was 26.7 (SD = 9.5) and the mean age of men was 27.2 (SD = 10.3). Moreover, 83.9% of the participants were married, 9.3% were divorced, 3.9% were in a relationship, 1.8% were single, and 1.2% were widowed.

Materials

The survey had two parts. In the first part, participants were given the following scenario:

You are dating someone, but his/her parents do not approve of you and they try to break up the relationship. However, you love your boyfriend/girlfriend and you want this relationship to last. You decide to change your boyfriend’s/girlfriend’s parents’ minds to accept and approve you.

Participants were then asked to list at least five acts they would use to influence their prospective parents-in-law. A hypothetical scenario was used to better identify the full range of acts that might be used. That is, if participants had been asked to recall actual instances of manipulation they had used on their prospective parents-in-law, some rare acts may not have been identified. In the second part, demographic information was collected (i.e., sex, age, marital status).

Results

In order to create a list of acts individuals employ to manipulate their mates’ parents, acts with identical or very similar wording were combined by two graduate students (a man and a woman) who were recruited for this purpose. The students were not aware of the hypotheses of this study. In instances where two or more acts were very similar, one was retained and the rest were dropped. In addition, acts that contained multiple behaviors were eliminated because these are difficult to interpret. Finally, acts with unclear or vague wording were also eliminated. Any disagreement about retaining a given item was resolved by consulting the author. Table 1 presents the 41 acts that individuals said they would use to manipulate their mates’ parents.

Table 1 Tactics of manipulation and factor loadings
Full size table

Study 2

The purpose of this study is to classify the acts identified in Study 1 into broader manipulation tactics.

Methods

Participants

Four research assistants were employed to recruit participants using the same procedure as in Study 1. The data collection process lasted approximately 4 months. In this study 738 Greek-Cypriots took part (386 women, 352 men). The mean age of women was 30.9 (SD = 11.1) and the mean age of men was 32.3 (SD = 11.8). Moreover, 33.1% of the participants were single, 31% were married, 31.8% were in a relationship, 3.1% were divorced, and 1% were widowed.

Materials

The survey had two parts. In the first part, participants were given the scenario as described in Study 1. They were then asked to rate the likelihood of using the 41 acts identified in Study 1 in order to make their mates’ parents change their minds and accept them as prospective mates for their children. The participants’ answers were recorded on a five-point Likert scale: 1 = “not at all likely to do it” to 5 = “very likely to do it.” In the second part, demographic information was collected (sex, age, marital status).

Results

In order to classify manipulation acts into broader categories of tactics, principal components analysis was applied with direct oblimin as a rotation method. The direct oblimin method was chosen because the assumption of uncorrelated tactics is unlikely. The results suggested a seven-factor solution (Eigenvalue > 1). The KMO statistic (0.94) indicated the sample is very good for factor analysis. The scales produced by this analysis were checked by means of reliability analysis (Cronbach’s α). Internal consistency (α) ranged from 0.60 to 0.86 with a mean of 0.75.

In order to estimate the overall willingness of individuals to employ manipulative acts on their prospective parents-in-law, a grand mean was computed by summing the scores for each act and dividing them by the number of scores. The results indicated a moderate willingness of individuals to use manipulation (M = 3.21, SD = 0.71). To examine which tactics are more likely to be used, composites were computed by summing the acts shown in Table 1 for each tactic. Each composite was divided by the number of items that composed it, and means and standard deviations were estimated. The results are presented in the columns for “Children” in Table 2.

Table 2 Ranks and contingencies based on MANCOVA results of willingness to use and sensitivity to manipulation tactics
Full size table

The most likely tactic to be used is “I am right for your child,” in which individuals try to demonstrate to the prospective parents-in-law how good they are as mates for their children. They try to show that they are a good influence for their partners, and how much they care about them. Following this comes the “I do not deserve this!” where individuals try to show their mates’ parents that they do not deserve their rejection. This tactic also includes asking their boyfriends and girlfriends to interfere and make their parents treat them better. We can also see that acts such as “I behave kindly toward them” load negatively on this tactic, indicating that when individuals employ it, they adopt a negative attitude toward their prospective parents-in-law. To put it another way, individuals who employ this tactic are more likely to use acts such as “I tell them that I am not worth of their behavior” and less likely to use acts such as “I behave kindly towards them.”

Third in hierarchy is the “Why don’t you like me?” tactic whereby individuals try to determine why their mates’ parents do not approve of them and also talk to the parents in order to change their minds. In the “No confrontation” tactic, individuals avoid escalating the disagreement with their mate’s parents by not replying to any negative comments they make, and by not making any negative comments themselves. In the “You have to accept the situation!” tactic, individuals adopt a tougher stance, saying to their prospective parents-in-law that the relationship will not end, and they also threaten them that if they do not accept the situation, they risk never seeing their grandchildren.

In the “Approach” tactic, individuals try to grow closer to their mates’ parents. They invite them home for dinner, they buy them gifts, they spend time with them, and they try to demonstrate that they care for them. Last in the hierarchy is the “Tell them I am good!” tactic in which individuals ask their mates to talk to their parents and persuade them that they are good people.

Contingencies

To examine whether the use of manipulation tactics is predicted by the participants’ sex and age, a series of MANCOVAs (Multivariate Analysis of Covariance) was applied on each tactic. More specifically, the acts that compose each tactic were entered as the dependent variables and the sex and age of the participants were entered as the independent variables. The results are presented in Table 2.

Sex differences were found for three tactics. In particular, men indicated a higher willingness to use the “Why don’t you like me?” and the “You have to accept the situation!” tactics, whereas women indicated a higher willingness to use the “Approach” tactic. For the “I am right for your child,” “You have to accept the situation!” and “Approach” tactics, age was significant and had a positive coefficient, indicating that older individuals are more likely to use these tactics than younger ones.

In order to examine whether women are overall more likely to use manipulation than men, an independent-samples t-test was applied on the grand mean variable. Although women were slightly more likely to use manipulation (M = 3.25, SD = 0.68) than men (M = 3.18, SD = 0.74), this difference did not meet the significance level.

Study 3

The purpose of this study is to examine how effective the tactics identified in Study 2 are in altering prospective parents-in-law’s minds.

Methods

Participants

Three research assistants were employed to recruit participants using the same procedure as in Study 1. In order to qualify for participation, an individual had to be adult and have at least one child. The data collection process lasted approximately 3 months.

In this study, 414 Greek-Cypriots took part (211 women, 203 men). The mean age of mothers was 41.4 (SD = 11.1), and the mean age of fathers was 43.9 (SD = 11.7). Participants had a mean of 1.3 (SD = 0.8) male children and a mean of 1.1 (SD = 0.8) female children. The mean age of the oldest female child was 15.3 (SD = 11.3) and the mean age of the oldest male child was 16 (SD = 11.2). Moreover, 78.5% of the participants were married, 12.1% were divorced, 4% were in a relationship, 4% were single, and 1.5% were widowed.

Materials

The survey had two parts. In the first part participants were given the scenario that their child was dating someone they do not approve of and they try to break up the relationship. Their children’s mates, however, try to change their minds. They were then asked to rate the likelihood that each of the 41 acts identified in Study 1 would influence them and make them change their minds. Participants’ answers were recorded on a five-point Likert scale: 1 = “not at all likely to influence me” to 5 = “very likely to influence me.” In the second part, demographic information was collected (sex, age, marital status, number of boys, number of girls, age of oldest boy, age of oldest girl).

Results

In order to identify which tactics are more and which are less likely to influence parents, means and standard deviations were estimated for each tactic, and the results are presented in the columns for “Parents” in Table 2. The “I am right for your child” and “No confrontation” tactics are at the top of the hierarchy, whereas “Approach” and “Tell them I am good!” are at the bottom of the hierarchy.

To estimate the overall effectiveness of manipulation, a grand mean was computed by summing the scores for each act and dividing them by the number of scores. The results indicate a moderate effectiveness of manipulation (M = 2.99, SD = 0.69). The moderate overall effectiveness of these tactics likely explains the moderate overall willingness of individuals to use them on their prospective parents-in-law that was found in Study 2. To examine whether the sensitivity to manipulation tactics is predicted by the sex and age of the participants, a series of MANCOVAs was applied on each tactic. In particular, for each tactic, the acts that comprise it were entered as the dependent variables and the sex and age of the participants were entered as the independent variables. The results are presented in Table 2. The age variable is not significant for any tactic. There was, however, a significant main effect of sex for the “I am right for your child” and “No confrontation” tactics: mothers indicated that they would be more likely to be influenced than fathers.

To examine whether mothers are more likely than fathers to be affected by manipulation, an independent-samples t-test was applied on the grand mean variable. The results indicate that mothers are marginally significantly more likely to be affected by their prospective sons- and daughters-in-laws’ manipulation (M = 3.06, SD = 0.65) than fathers (M = 2.92, SD = 2.92) [t 369 = −1.93, p = 0.055, d = 0.21].

Finally, in order to examine how prospective mates’ manipulation tactics are adapted to the sensitivity of their prospective parents-in-law to each tactic, the rankings of tactics for parents and children’s mates (presented in Table 2) were tested with Spearman’s rank-order correlation. The correlation coefficient is strong and positive (r = 0.714), indicating that children’s mates tend to use those tactics that are more likely to influence their mates’ parents. Note that the test approaches but does not meet the significance level (p = 0.071), most likely because of the limited number of data points (N = 7).

Discussion

Mate-seekers may find themselves dating desirable individuals whose parents do not approve of them and try to drive them away (Apostolou 2013; Apostolou and Papageorgi 2014). The present research found that in order to prevent this from compromising their mating success, they employ at least seven distinct manipulation tactics so as to change their prospective parents-in-law’s minds. These tactics can be effective in changing parents’ minds, with some tactics being more effective than others. In addition, individuals can accurately assess which tactics are likely to be more effective, and they tend to use the more effective ones rather than the less effective ones.

This research indicates that parental manipulation is constrained by counter manipulation not only by children but also by children’s mates. That is, parents have the capacity to change their children’s minds about an undesirable relationship, but children’s mates also have the capacity to change their mates’ parents’ minds. One implication is that neither party has the sole power to manipulate the other. Thus, we cannot readily predict which party will succeed. Most likely, none of the parties will manage to have its own way, meaning that parents will not be able to get rid of an undesirable in-law, and individuals will not be able to persuade their prospective parents-in-law to accept them. In effect, there may be a situation of continuous strife and manipulation.

One limitation of this study is that it is based on self-report data. Accordingly, individuals may behave differently than they report here when the actual situation arises. For instance, parents may be affected more by certain tactics than their scores indicate. Moreover, this research is based on a single culture, and its results may not readily apply to different cultural settings. For example, in less economically developed countries where people rely more on each other, tactics such as the “Approach” may be more effective since parents are likely to find the help of their prospective in-laws more useful. Future studies need to replicate these findings in different cultural settings and to identify possible cultural effects.

Furthermore, this study analyzed only two factors, sex and age, to determine whether they predict the use and impact of various tactics, but other factors are also expected to play a significant role. For instance, previous research indicates that personality constitutes an important predictor of tactics use (e.g., de Miguel and Buss 2011). On this basis we can hypothesize that the choice of tactics individuals employ on their prospective parents-in-law is predicted by specific aspects of their personality, such as agreeableness. That is, children who score high in this dimension may be willing to employ specific tactics and not others. We can hypothesize further that the effectiveness of tactics will be predicted by the personality of the prospective parents-in-law. That is, specific tactics may influence parents more than others based on their personality traits. These predictions need to be tested by future research.

This study examined the tactics individuals employ before their relationship evolves into marriage. Future studies need to investigate the long-term effect that the use of these tactics has following marriage. For instance, assertive tactics employed mainly by young men may dampen the relationship with parents-in-law later on. Also, individuals are not always successful in persuading the parents of their mates to accept them before marriage, which means that manipulation is likely to continue following marriage. Future studies need to investigate which of the tactics identified here are most likely to be used, and whether any tactics not identified here are exclusively used in the context of marriage.

Although an overall sex difference in the willingness to use manipulation on prospective parents-in-law was not found, one sex may need to employ these tactics more than the other. In particular, parents are more heavily involved in the mate choices of their daughters than of their sons (Perilloux et al. 2008). For instance, Weisfeld et al. (2011) reported that parents of daughters were seen as having played more of a role in their children’s choice of a spouse than parents of sons. Accordingly, parents may be stricter in accepting a boyfriend for their daughter than a girlfriend for their son. This being the case, men would more frequently find themselves needing to use the tactics identified here, a prediction that future studies should examine. In addition, future research needs to examine how prospective spouses cooperate in overcoming parents’ reluctance, and also whether individuals focus more on their own parents than on the parents of their mates.

One question that arises is whether the observed tactics reflect specific mechanisms that have evolved to serve this purpose (i.e., manipulating in-laws) or co-opt adaptations for manipulation in other domains. In order to answer this, we need to examine whether ancestral individuals recurrently faced the problem of persuading their prospective in-laws to accept them as mates for their children. Evidence from the anthropological records indicates that a common type of marriage (albeit less frequent than arranged marriage) in pre-industrial societies, and most likely in ancestral ones, is courtship subject to parental approval (Apostolou 2014). Here, individuals find their own mates, but for the marriage to proceed their parents need to approve their choices. Consequently, in this scenario, individuals face the problem of making their mates’ parents accept them.

Nevertheless, in the preindustrial context the most prevalent mode of long-term mating is arranged marriage, wherein parents choose spouses for their children (Apostolou 2014; Broude and Green 1983). In this case, the situation in which an individual is chosen by a child but not approved by his or her parents is less likely. Yet even in this scenario, individuals may still need to influence their parents-in-law to accept them as desirable mates for their children. First. men commonly take the initiative to ask a woman’s parents for her hand in marriage (Apostolou 2014). Thus, men who would be able to persuade prospective parents-in-law that they are right for them and for their daughters would be better off than those who were not able to do so. Also, the primary consideration of parents who arrange marriages with other families is to establish a beneficial alliance rather than the specific qualities of the prospective son- or daughter-in-law (Apostolou 2014). Thus, parents may accept as spouses for their children individuals they do not necessary like. In turn, this can lead to strife and conflict between the parties, which may be particularly disadvantageous for the sons- and daughters-in-law, who are younger and usually have lower social standing than their parents-in-law. Accordingly, it would pay for an individual to manipulate their parents-in-law to accept them, as this would make their life and marriage easier.

Overall, evolutionary pressures likely led ancestral individuals to become effective manipulators of their in-laws. This would result in the evolution of specific tactics that would serve this purpose. Such pressures may further result in the refinement of general manipulation tactics to promote this goal. Accordingly, the manipulation tactics found in this study are likely to reflect mechanisms that have evolved to enable the manipulation of fathers- and mothers-in-law plus more general manipulation mechanisms, which are also employed to serve this purpose.

To conclude, the reproductive stakes are high in the choice of a partner, and considerable manipulation is likely to arise between the parties involved. Understanding this manipulation is necessary for understanding family dynamics and mate choice. However, this domain of inquiry is not well researched, and this study has contributed to closing part of the gap in our knowledge, but more research is required in order to gain a better understanding of the phenomenon.