Stand by your (exploitive) man: Codependency and responses to performance feedback

Codependency-typified by extreme reliance on relationships, particularly wi th exploitive individuals, as a means of personal fulfillment-is a personal ity syndrome believed to develop, in part, from dysfunctional parenting. Ba sed on this characterization, it was reasoned that codependency would be as sociated with inadequate parental bonding. It was also reasoned that codepe ndent persons would be more attentive and responsive to an exploitive than to a nurturant other, whereas the opposite was expected for noncodependent persons. Support was found for both of these predictions: Questionnaire dat a revealed an association between codependency and high maternal control an d/or low maternal care. In a laboratory procedure modeled after Lyon and Gr eenberg (1991), high and low codependents evidenced predicted, markedly dif ferent changes in mood as a function of whether they received positive or n egative feedback from either an exploitive or a nurturant source. Evaluatio ns of the source differed similarly. Based on these results, a model for un derstanding codependent persons' persistence in abusive relationships is pr oposed.