Physically abused adolescents' evaluations of transgressions and disciplinary techniques

Includes bibliographical references (pages [113]-125).Female adolescents with a childhood history of physical abuse (n = 20) and a matched group with no history of corporal punishment (n = 20) were presented vignettes depicting children committing moral, conventional, or personal transgressions and parents' inductive or power-assertive disciplinary response to the transgression. Mitigating information was included in half the vignettes. Adolescents evaluated moral transgressions as more wrong than conventional transgressions, which were evaluated as more wrong than personal transgressions. In general, transgressions containing mitigating information were regarded as less wrong than transgressions without mitigating information. Adolescents predicted more compliance for moral than for conventional or personal transgressions. Power assertion was evaluated as more effective, but less appropriate than induction. Although few of the expected group differences were found, recipients of childhood physical abuse predicted less subsequent compliance following discipline than the comparison group and reported the use of more power-assertive discipline by their own parents.M.A. (Master of Arts