Parental Alienation as Observational Learning: A Social-Learning Framework and Descriptive Findings From a National Survey of Self- Identified Alienated Parents in Italy

This paper proposes a social-learning reading of parental alienation, drawing on Bandura’s social-learning theory to frame the phenomenon as an observational-learning process—exposure, internalization, reproduction, and reinforcement. It introduces the Model of Relational Experimentation (MRE) and presents descriptive findings from the first national survey on parental alienation in Italy, conducted in 2016 by the association F.L.A.Ge, in which 100 self-identified alienated parents (53% mothers, 47% fathers) completed an 11-item self-report questionnaire. Respondents reported predominantly ongoing alienation, an onset of the child’s rejection most often between ages 7 and 10, frequent accusations against the alienated parent, and contact disruption attributed to false accusations or child removal. The findings illustrate the lived experience of alienation as reported by these parents and are discussed as consistent with—though not a direct test of—an observational-learning account.