Mothers' and Children's Conceptualizations of Corporal Punishment

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Preschool (M age = 4–11) and fifth-grade (M age = 12–1) children and their mothers judged the acceptability of corporal punishment as a function of the type of transgression (dangerous, violation of social rule, or violation of moral precept) and discipline agent. Children of both ages and their mothers discriminated among different types of transgressions as a function of rule contingency, rule generalizability, and seriousness of the transgression. Social convention transgressions were judged to be more rule contingent, less generalizable (across settings), and less serious than prudential (dangerous) or moral violations, but overall children judged transgressions to be more generalizable than did their mothers. Preschool children showed broad acceptability for severe corporal punishment given any type of transgression, by any agent, whereas fifth graders were generally discriminating about limits of punishability, and their judgments appeared to be transitional between the broad acceptance shown by younger children and more focused acceptability shown by mothers. Mothers were proprietary with respect to agent and tended to focus on dangerous and moral violations as punishable. Findings suggest a developmental path from a single criterion for young children to consideration of multiple criteria for older children and adults. Judgments were also interpreted as reflecting social roles such as parents' responsibility to constrain children and children's expectations for constraint. Preschool children's broad acceptability of punishment despite their differentiation of classes of rules and of transgressions suggests that different constraints operate for judgments about rules or commands as opposed to sanctions. Implications for children's ability to identify and report abuse are also noted.