The Effect of Behavioral Context on Some Aspects of Adult Disciplinary Practice and Affect

Abstract

STEVENS-LONG, JUDITH. The Effect of Behavioral Context on Some Aspects of Adult Disciplinary Practice and Affect. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1973, 44, 476-484. Parents of elementary school children responded to videotaped sequences portraying either an overactive, an underactive, or an average-active child. Ss selected a disciplinary practice and recorded affect toward the children at 10 points during the sequences, 5 of which occurred after S viewed a brief incident of aggression by the child. The experimental hypotheses were that overactive children would be punished more severely than the other children; that the label emotionally disturbed would influence adult responses; and that affect and choice of discipline would be correlated. Analysis of variance generally supported these hypotheses, although there were interactions among aggression, activity level, and labeling for choice of discipline. Moreover, the underactive child evoked more severe punishment under some conditions than the average-active child.