Compliance Demands Research Articles

Maternal Responsiveness and Child Compliance: The Role of Mood as a Mediator

Parpal and Maccoby demonstrated that responsive maternal play increases children's compliance. They suggested that positive mood induction might be one mechanism mediating this effect. Study 1 tested the hypothesis that a responsive maternal play procedure would indeed induce a positive mood. 32 4-year-olds and their mothers participated. Half of the mothers were trained in a responsive play technique prior to a laboratory play session; half of them were not trained. Postplay self-reports of mood indicated that responsive play increased positive mood but did not affect arousal levels. Study 2 tested the hypothesis that experimentally induced positive mood increases compliance in the types of tasks reported in the Parpal and Maccoby's research. 24 4-year-olds were randomly assigned to either a positive or negative mood induction and then tested for response to maternal compliance demands. Children induced into positive moods complied more and complied with shorter latencies than children induced into negative moods. The fact that maternal responsiveness induces a positive mood points to a mechanism that may be significant in both attachment and socialization beyond infancy.

An application of social learning methods in a residential programme for young offenders

The application of behavioural principles to working with young offenders has been extensive in the U.S.A. in recent years with the development of the Achievement Place family group home programme a significant feature. Developments in the United Kingdom have been more limited, with no published accounts other than very partial replications of the Achievement Place approach. This paper describes the development of a partial replication of the Achievement Place approach in Unit One, a community based residential programme for young offenders in South East London. The Unit One programme incorporates a token economy, a school programme, teaching interactions and self-government. The paper describes successful outcomes for five out of eight of the delinquents first admitted to the programme, and identifies some of the factors associated with success. It also describes two process research projects evaluating effectiveness of training in social reinforcement for residential care staff, and in training teachers working with Unit One youth's to make effective demands for compliance. The paper concludes by highlighting problems in attempting a partial replication of the Achievement Place approach.

Economy and Child Training Reexamined

The research by Barry, Bacon, and Child 1957 and Barry, Child, and Bacon 1959 on childhood socialization and economy is among the most influential of cross-cultural studies in the scope of its impact. This research showed that sex differences in socialization and demands for compliance both tend to be related to the mode of subsistence production in societies. Linking social structure to child training and personality development in a systematic, empirical way, these studies were well received by social scientists in a variety of disciplines. Various parts of this work were widely cited, reprinted, and used in classrooms during the decade following publication, and this interest continues. For example, some research activity has been stimulated (Bolton, Bolton, Gross, Koel, Michelson, Munroe, and Munroe 1976; Cone 1979) and subsequent sets of data codes have been published (Barry and Paxson 1971; Barry, Josephson, Lauer, and Marshall 1976, 1977). The upsurge of work on gender during the past decade often has referred to the work on sex differences in socialization (cf. Tavris and Offir 1984) and has reflected a renewed interest in sex-role socialization.

The Study of Compliance Maintenance as a Strategy for Comparative Research

The focus of this article is upon the compliance-inducing mechanisms present in any political system. The notion of compliance relationships is central to all conceptualizations of the political system and its functions, as it is related to all political ‘primitives” such as power, influence, authority, etc. Political systems exist above all for the purpose of establishing compliance with some set of norms or values. The primary institutional form reflecting the performance of this function is government. Members of governmental institutions attempt to maintain the compliance system (a) because of the security of habits, and (b) because they share the same set of norms or values. For a number of reasons the efforts of these actors to maintain the compliance system may not be coordinated: they may or may not act ‘rationally” according to the criteria of rationality applied, but the end product of their activity is a stream of demands for compliance that is oriented toward the enhancement of a desired normative system.