Who gets mad, sad, scared or happy at discipline? Emotion attributions explain child externalizing behaviour

Abstract

AbstractFew studies have linked parental discipline with children's emotional experiences, and not much data explore children's emotional attributions to discipline linked to externalizing behaviour. With a sample from Brazil, this study examines which emotions children most aptly attribute to a protagonist facing spanking, time‐out or inductive discipline for norm violations. We hypothesized that anger, sadness, and fear would have higher attribution rates at spanking or time‐out, relative to inductive discipline and that happiness would have higher attribution rates at induction relative to the other discipline modalities. We expected these findings to be more pronounced in older children. Based on emotional functions, we also tested the role of neutrality and happiness attributions to discipline in children's externalizing behaviour. A two‐way MANOVA, with discipline and child age as explanatory variables, showed that children attributed more anger at time‐out or spanking than at induction, and more happiness and neutrality at induction than at either time‐out or spanking. Older children attributed significantly more sadness and less fear or neutrality. Hierarchical regressions showed that child externalizing behaviour was negatively related to happy attributions in discipline independently of child emotion situation knowledge or demographics. The results are interpreted in light of a functional view of emotions.