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The Effect of Self-relevance
on Judgments of Moderate and Severe
DisciplinaryEncounters
SHARON D. HERZBERGER
Trinity College
HOWARD TENNEN*
University of Connecticut Medical School
This study investigated the effects of discipline experienced as a child on the adult's percep-
tions of the severity, deservedness, and appropriateness of disciplinary actions. Clinical
observation suggests that individuals abused as children are more likely to label severe
physical discipline as deserved, appropriate, and perhaps even beneficial. To test this
hypothesis, participants read descriptions of a child's behavior and the parent's response.
Those who had experienced similar parental treatment judged the discipline less harshly
and held the child more accountable than those without similar experiences. The results
generalized to moderate emotional and physical discipline and to severe physical tech-
niques. The implications of these results for the cyclical hypothesis of child abuse are
discussed.
A person's perception of the severity of a disci- Thomas and associates (1977), for example,
plinary act is influenced by many factors, includ- found that children who had observed a physically
ing his/her cultural and ethnic heritage (Giovan- aggressive police drama were less physiologically
noni and Becerra, 1979), religion (Morris, 1979), aroused by a subsequent fight between pre-
and professional affiliation (Gelles, 1977; Giovan- schoolers than those who had watched an exciting
noni and Becerra, 1979). One factor that has volleyball game. Lefkowitz and colleagues (1972)
received much attention is the individual's suggest that a pattern of viewing violent television
previous exposure to aggression both within and programs among children may contribute to a
external to disciplinary situations. Consistent with propensity for aggression a decade later.
social learning theory's premises on the effects of The effects of modeling may even extend to
models (Bandura, 1973), findings show that peo- those who have been the recipients of aggression.
ple who have observed violence in the past may Clinical reports (Kempe and Kempe, 1978), for
regard it less seriously than those who have not. example, suggest that some children regard their
abusive parent's treatment as rightful and charac-
teristic of other families. While it is unclear
Portionsof this paperwerepresentedat the American whether these children are more likely to engage in
PsychologicalAssociationconventionin Washington, aggression than other abused children, we know
DC, August1982.Thestudywassupportedby a Faculty that children who have been abused tend to be
ResearchGrantfrom TrinityCollege.
more aggressive than children in general (George
Departmentof Psychology,TrinityCollege, 300 Sum- and Main, 1979; Kinard, 1979) and that abused
mit Street,Hartford,CT 06106. children tend to lack empathy (Straker and Jacob-
son, 1981). Furthermore, observation of harsh
*Departmentof Psychology,Universityof Connecticut treatment is believed to be one factor that ac-
MedicalSchool, Farmington,CT 06032. counts for the increased incidence of child abuse
Krisis the daughterof Mr. and Mrs. Jones. One old child. Pleaseread each descriptioncarefully
day when Kris was drawingat her desk, she and answer the questions accompanyingthe
decidedto draw a pictureon the bedroomwall description.We are interestedin obtainingyour
withcrayons.WhenMr. Jonessawwhatshe had impressionsof the incident-not the impressions
done, he banged her against the wall several you thinkyou should have. So, pleasebe honest
times. [Physicalabuse] andopenaboutyouropinions.Do not writeyour
Four of the vignettes (one of each type) involved a nameanywhereon this booklet.
daughter, and four involved a son, with gender Participants then were asked to read the vignettes
counterbalanced across questionnaires. The disci- carefully and to make six judgments about each.
plinary agent (mother versus father) varied across The six judgments were: (a) severity of the
participants but remained the same within a given parent's response (regardless of the child's pro-
participant's questionnaire. The vignettes were vocation), from 1 (not at all severe) to 7 (extreme-
collated in two random orders. ly severe); (b) appropriateness of the parent's be-
havior, from 1 (not at all appropriate) to 7
Experimental Session
(perfectly appropriate); (c) likelihood that the
Subjects. College students (N = 139) from a parent's behavior would increase or decrease the
small private college participated in the study to child's tendency to misbehave in the future, from
fulfill a requirement as part of their introductory -4 (very likely to decrease future misbehavior) to
psychology course. +4 (very likely to increase future misbehavior);
Procedure. Participation took place in groups (d) likelihood that the parent's behavior would
(30-50 subjects in each) and under conditions of produce a positive or negative result on the child's
anonymity. Participants were handed the ques- emotional development, from -4 (very likely to
tionnaire that contained the eight vignettes and produce a negative effect on emotional develop-
given the following written instructions: ment) to + 4 (very likely to produce a positive ef-
On the followingpages we describedisciplinary fect on emotional development); (e) a dichoto-
interactionsbetweenparent and child. The in- mous choice as to whether the respondent would
teractions have been taken from actual case regard the parental behavior as "child abuse";
studies.The namesof the participants,however, and (f) degree to which the parent's action was
havebeenalteredand otheridentifyinginforma- seen as the child's responsibility, as the parent's
tion has beendeletedto protectthe anonymityof responsibility (both ratings were expressed in per-
the individualsinvolved. Each interactiontook
centage form and were required to sum to 100%07).
place betweena parentand his or her 4-7 year-