Psychology

One of the few legal tools for protecting victims of domestic violence is the civil Protection Order (PO). How effective they were in preventing re-abuse was analyzed by examining court and police records from 210 couples in which female victims (or "applicants") filed POs against their violent partners. Police records for 2 years prior and two years following the issuance of a PO were reviewed. Results indicated a significant decline in the probability of abuse following a PO. Prior to filing a PO, 68% of the women reported physical violence. After filing, only 23% reported physical violence. Several risk factors were assessed and it was found that very low SES women were more likely to report re-abuse as were African-Americans.

This study tested the feasibility of using audio recorders to collect novel information about family interactions. Research into corporal punishment (CP) has relied, almost exclusively, on self-report data; audio recordings have the promise of revealing new insights into the use and immediate consequences of CP. So we could hear how parents respond to child conflicts, 33 mothers wore digital audio recorders for up to 6 evenings. We identified a total of 41 CP incidents, in 15 families and involving 22 parent-child dyads. These incidents were evaluated on 6 guidelines culled from the writings of CP advocates. The results indicated, contrary to advice, CP was not being used in line with 3 of the 6 recommendations and for 2 others, the results were equivocal. The last recommendation could not be assessed with audio. Latency analyses revealed children, after being hit, were misbehaving again within 10 minutes after 73% of the incidents. Mothers' self reports about whether they used CP were found to correspond to the audio data in 81% of the cases. Among the mothers who were hitting, CP occurred at a much higher rate than the literature indicates. These results should be viewed as preliminary because of the small sample of families and the even smaller number of families who used CP. Nevertheless, this pilot study demonstrates that audio recording naturally occurring momentary processes in the family is a viable method for collecting new data to address important questions about family interactions.

African-American and Anglo-American children's assessments of four disciplinary methods (spanking, reasoning, withdrawing privileges, and time-out) were investigated with 108 children ages 6-10 years old and one of their parents. Children watched videos depicting a child being disciplined and then rated each discipline method. Reasoning was rated as most fair, spanking as least fair. Spanking was regarded most effective for immediate compliance but not for long-term behavior change. Children with medium high levels of exposure to spanking were more likely to regard it as the best disciplinary technique compared with children with low or high exposure levels. Younger children rated spanking as fairer than older children. No differences were found between African-American and Anglo-American children's assessments after controlling for exposure to spanking and socioeconomic status. Implications about the role of children's assessments of discipline for internalization are discussed.

Although it is commonly recognized that parenting is multiply determined, mechanisms by which the context influences parental behavior have rarely been examined. In this paper, the role of environmental affordances and demands are described and tested in two observational studies. In Study 1, mothers and their 3-year-old children were observed in three settings where affordances and demands differed: the home, park, and laboratory. In Study 2, mothers and their children engaged in three laboratory conditions in which the amount of demands on the mother was manipulated. Several child-rearing variables showed systematic relations with the presence of affordances and demands. It is concluded that affordances and demands play an important role in influencing maternal behavior by acting as environmental cues for place-related behavior. Further, it is proposed that parental perceptions of the immediate context and the recognition of appropriate environmental cues are paramount in understanding the variability of parental behavior across situational contexts.