JOURNAL
OF EXPERIMENTAL
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
28, 525-538 (1979)
Inconsistent Discipline of Aggression in Young Boys DOUGLAS University
B. SAWIN of Texas
at Austin
AND
Ross D. PARKE University
of IIIinois
at Champaign-Urbana
Two studies assessed the effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on aggression in young boys. One agent responded to hitting behavior with verbal disapproval while another agent responded with verbal approval. In Experiment 1, the frequencies of hitting responses of first- and second-grade boys were examined under four schedules of adult reactions: (1) consistent disapproval; (2) consistent ignoring: (3) consistent approval; and (4) inconsistent discipline (approval from one agent and disapproval from the other). Aggressive responding was least frequent when met with consistent disapproval whereas the frequency of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline condition was not different than that in the consistent approval and ignore conditions. In Experiment 2, the frequencies of hitting responses were examined under a schedule of consistent disapproval following a brief schedule of either: (1) inconsistent discipline; (2) consistent approval; or (3) consistent ignoring. Hitting behavior during consistent disapproval was greatest following a period of inconsistent discipline and least frequent following a history of consistent ignoring. These findings replicate the results of correlational field studies of the relation between inconsistent discipline and aggression in boys. In addition, these experimental studies demonstrate a causal link and the direction of effects between these variables. Inconsistent discipline has been implicated as a contributor to children’s aggression in a number of studies. Gleuck and Gleuck (1950) found that parents of delinquent boys were more “erratic” in their disciplinary practices than were parents of nondelinquent boys. Similarly, McCord, McCord, and Zola (1959) have reported several patterns of inconsistent discipline which were significant antecedents of subsequent conviction for criminal behavior. Among these types of discipline, the pattern wherein
This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Gs-31885X) to Ross D. Parke. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Douglas B. sawin, Department of psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Mezes Hall 330, Austin, TX 78712. 525 0022-0965/79/060525-14$02.00/O Copyright Q 1979 by Academic Ress. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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one parent was punitive and the other was lax, or the parents varied inconsistently between the two methods, was the familial context in which the largest percentage of the convicted juvenile delinquents were socialized. In a subsequent study comparing the disciplinary practices of parents of aggressive boys and parents of nonaggressive boys, these investigators (McCord, McCord, & Howard, 1961) found the parents of aggressive boys were inconsistent, with one parent punitive and the other permissive. This relationship is not restricted to deviant samples. A similar relation between inconsistent parenting practices and children’s aggression has been reported by Martin and Hetherington (Note 2), Baumrind (1967), and Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) who used samples of normal, nondeviant children. Findings from a study of adolescent aggression reported by Bandura and Walters (1959) and Bandura (Note 1) indicate that the relation between inconsistent discipline and aggression may not be a simple one. They found that interparental disagreement concerning disciplinary practices was greater in the families of both aggressive and inhibited boys than in the families of both nonaggressive and assertive boys. Thus there are correlational findings from a number of studies indicating a link between patterns of inconsistent parent discipline and children’s aggression. However, the causal inconclusiveness of these correlational field studies indicates the need for controlled study of this issue. Further, the definition of inconsistency has shifted across these field studies and clear distinctions concerning the specific effects of different types of inconsistency are not available from these earlier investigations. Two types of inconsistency need to be distinguished: intra- and interagent inconsistency. Intraagent inconsistency refers to the extent to which a single agent treats violations in a different manner each time they occur while interagent inconsistency refers to differences between two agents in their treatment of the same violation on each occasion (Becker, 1964; Martin, 1975; Walters & Parke, 1967). Recent laboratory studies have yielded information concerning the effects of intraagent, inconsistent punishment on aggressive behavior in children. Park and Deur (1972) found that inconsistent punishment of aggression resulted in significantly more hitting responses by young boys than consistent punishment of the aggressive hitting behavior. In a related study, Deur and Parke (1970) demonstrated that inconsistent punishment of aggressive hitting behavior also led to increased resistance of the hitting responses to modification by continuous punishment and extinction. Similar findings have been reported by Katz (1971). Explanations of these effects in earlier research have been based on learning theory models. Parke and Deur (1972) explained the higher levels of aggressive hitting in the intraagent, inconsistent punishment condition
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DISCIPLINE
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consistent punishment were lowest in the training condition where the socializing agents had ignored the aggressive behavior (mean raw frequency = 31.0) prior to consistent punishment. An a posteriori test of the differences among the three means using the Newman-Keuls procedure indicated a significant difference between the mean number of aggressive responses in the ignore and inconsistent discipline conditions (p < .05). Levels of hitting during consistent disapproval by children in the consistent approval training condition (mean raw frequency = 36.7) were intermediate to those in the ignore and inconsistent punishment conditions and were not significantly different from either. This pattern of results, though only marginally significant, parallels the effects of interagent inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1 and the effects of intruagent inconsistent punishment on aggressive responding during consistent punishment and extinction in the study by Deur and Parke (1970). However, caution must be exercised in interpreting the findings from Experiment 2 because of the greater attrition of subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Given this effect of inconsistent discipline and in light of the earlier discussion of this issue, a conservative interpretation of the findings from Experiment 2 is: The boys who persisted in aggressive behavior in the face of a brief period of inconsistent discipline were more aggressive during the subsequent period of consistent discipline than were the boys who engaged in this behavior under the prior conditions of consistent approval or of consistent ignoring by socialization agents. GENERAL
DISCUSSION
The effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on boys’ aggressive behavior found in these experimental studies corresponds closely to the relation between these variables observed in correlational studies. In addition, the findings from the present experiments provide some clarification of this relation by demonstrating a causal link between interagent, inconsistent discipline and aggressive hitting behavior. The bimodal pattern of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline conditions of these studies corresponds to findings from two other studies dealing with interagent, inconsistent discipline. Recall the findings reported by Meyers (1944) that conflicting commands given by two adults to nursery school children produced uncertainty and, for many of the children, emotional upset. In the present studies, informal observations of the boys by the authors through the one-way window revealed similar reactions by the subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Some of the subjects appeared quite disconcerted by the conflicting cues from the socializing agents and behaved in a very cautious and inhibited manner. These subjects made a few tentative hits but soon discontinued their hitting behavior and withdrew from this activity by sitting down. In contrast, other boys in this condition appeared annoyed and even angry in
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SAWIN
of the paradigm and therefore findings to natural child-rearing
AND PARKE
to permit greater generalization contexts.
EXPERIMENT
of the
1
The first experiment was designed to compare the effects on children’s aggressive responding of four different patterns of simultaneous, response-contingent, verbal reactions by zwo socializing agents. The four patterns were: (1) consistent disapproval wherein both agents responded negatively to the hitting responses of the subjects; (2) consistent ignoring which was an extinction schedule wherein both agents ignored the hitting behavior; (3) consistent approval which consisted of both agents responding with positive, encouraging comments contingent on the hitting behavior; and (4) inconsistent discipline wherein one agent responded to hitting responses with positive comments and the other agent responded to the same responses with negative comments. The hypothesis of central interest was that inconsistent discipline, in the form of contrasting positive and negative verbal responses from two socializing agents, would result in significantly more aggressive behavior than consistent negative reactions by the two agents. Consistently positive reactions by the two agents were also expected to result in higher frequencies of hitting behavior than consistent negative reactions to hitting behavior. Method Subjects
Fifty, fist- and second-grade boys served as subjects (mean age = 7.42 years; range = 6.42 to 8.25 years).’ The boys were recruited from their regular classrooms in a suburban elementary school serving lowermiddle- and middle-class neighborhoods. All of the boys were white. After each child was familiarized with the experimental context, but before actual participation and before implementation of the response feedback manipulations, they were given a choice about whether they wanted to participate in the hitting behavior or not. Ten subjects chose not to participate, leaving a total of 40 subjects. These subjects were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions with the restriction that ’ Only boys were recruited to participate in these experiments because; (a) aggression in boys was the focus of the field research from which the hypotheses of this study were derived; (b) the earlier experimental studies of inconsistent punishment of aggression have utilized a dependent measure of aggressive behavior (the “Bobo” variation of a punching bag) that would not be appropriate for girls and a primary purpose of this study was the further exploration of findings from the earlier research, thus a comparable response measure was called for; (c) though certainly an important issue and one that ought to be pursued in future research, sex differences in the processes examined here were not of primary interest at this point and would have required an expansion of the research that was not warranted at this stage of the work in this area or by the central theoretical arguments which guided the present research.
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equal numbers of tirst and second graders were assigned to each condition. Thus, 10 subjects were assigned to each of four experimental conditions. Procedure
The subjects were brought individually from their classrooms to a mobile laboratory trailer by the experimenter-a white female in her late twenties. In the experimental room of the trailer was a Bobo doll apparatus which consisted of a clown painted on a large wooden box with a padded-cushion stomach (Deur & Parke, 1970). Seated in the room on either side of the punching apparatus were two adult females who were engaged in “paper work” and who would serve as the socializing agents.2 Upon entering the room, the subject was introduced to the two adult women by name. The subject was then shown the punching apparatus and informed that “Bobo” was like a punching bag that was being tried out for a company that wanted to see if children would want to hit him. The child was then asked if he wanted to “hit” the Bobo doll, and if he said yes, the procedures were explained in more detail. Each subject who chose to participate was asked to put on a boxing glove and to stand in his “corner, like in a real boxing match” (approximately 2.5 m from the Bobo doll) and told that after each “hit” he must return to his corner. This procedure was adopted to allow sufficient time for the response feedback by the socializing agents to be given for each hit. The experimenter then led the subject through two “hit” trials to be sure the child understood the procedures about returning to his corner between hits. Following the two “familiarization” trials, the experimenter made an excuse to leave the room and enter the observation room to record the frequency of hits through a one-way window. Before leaving she explained that the two women would be “in charge.” In addition she explained that when he was ready to stop hitting the Bobo clown, he simply needed to take off the boxing glove and sit down at a small table where he could draw with the crayons and paper provided there until she returned. After the experimenter had left the testing room, and beginning with the first hit by the subject, the two adult women responded to the subject’s hitting behavior with one of four schedules of verbal feedback: 2 Two women, as opposed to two men or a man and a woman, were utilized as the socializing agents in these experiments for two reasons: (a) At this stage in the progress of the experimental research of the issues regarding inconsistent discipline, the effects of the sex of the socializing agent were not of primary interest; and (b) examination of these effects and the interaction effects involving sex of agent, positive vs negative feedback, and order of positive vs negative feedback would have required a much more elaborate and complex research design that was not warranted at this point.
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(1) Consistent disapproval: Both agents made a disapproving comment about each hit. (2) Consistent approval: Both agents made an approving comment about each hit. (3) Znconsistenf discipline: One agent made a disapproving comment about each hit while the other agent made an approving comment (which agent was “approving” and which was “disapproving,” and order of positive and negative comments were counterbalanced across subjects). (4) Consistenf ignore: Both agents ignored the hitting behavior and simply continued with their work. The specific approving and disapproving comments used by the agents are presented in Table 1. The order of their presentation for each subject was random, but determined a priori. Though the socializing agents were unavoidably aware of the treatment administered to each subject, they were unaware of the hypothesis being tested. The experimenter who introduced the subjects to the procedure was unaware of the condition to which subjects were assigned and also unaware of the hypothesis of the study. The dependent measure was the total number of hits by each subject before he elected to terminate the hitting behavior. Soon after each subject sat down at the coloring table to signal that he had finished, the experimenter returned to the room, and a carefully constructed debriefing was undertaken by all three women. This debriefing included: (1) friendly comments by the socializing agents designed to let the subject know that they were not angry with him; (2) a discussion of the distinctions between hitting a mechanical punching machine and real persons; (3) some comments about role taking and empathy in regard to the consequences to victims of hitting; (4) some discussion about nonaggressive ways of settling disagreements and arguments; and (5) some probe questions to assure that the child understood the discussion about aggression. The subject was then asked to keep the TABLE
1
APPROVING AND DISAPPROVING COMMENTS MADE BY SOCIALIZING AGENTS IN RESPONSE TO THE HITTING BEHAVIOR OF THE CHILDREN
Approving
comments
I think that’s fine when you do that. That’s fine; I think hitting’s okay. Hey, great. Tremendous. Super. I think hitting’s all right. Oh, wow. Nice going.
Disapproving
comments
I don’t like it when you do that. That’s terrible; I don’t like hitting. That’s nasty. Horrible. That’s not cool. I don’t think hitting’s nice. That’s mean. That’s bad.
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“game” a secret from the other children so that it would be a surprise for them and was then returned to the classroom. Results and Discussion
The distribution of hitting frequencies was positively skewed. In order to avoid an undue influence of the extreme scores on the group means and to reduce the extreme heterogeneity of the group variances, a log transformation (X’ = log X; Kirk, 1968; Winer, 1971) was imposed on the hitting frequency scores prior to analysis. These transformed scores were then submitted to a one-way, equal n, analysis of variance for the four treatment conditions. A significant main effect was found for the experimental conditions [F(3,36) = 5.7, p = .003].3 The most hitting behavior occurred in the inconsistent discipline condition (mean raw frequency = 58.4) and, as expected, the least amount of hitting occurred in the consistent disapproval condition (X = 1.5) while hitting in the consistent approval and consistent ignore conditions was intermediate to that in two extreme conditions (X = 26.3 andX = 18.4, respectively). An a posteriori test of the differences among the four means using the Newman-Keuls procedure (Winer, 1971) indicated that significantly more hitting occurred in the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignore conditions than in the consistent disapproval condition (p < .Ol). The differences in the mean frequencies of hitting among the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignoring conditions were not statistically significant. Thus, as expected, interagent, inconsistent discipline in the form of disapproval from one agent and approval from a second resulted in significantly higher levels of hitting behavior than resulted from consistent disapproval from the two agents. Of particular interest was the fact that there were no significant differences in the mean frequencies of hitting among the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignoring conditions. While there is precedence from research on the vicarious reinforcement of aggression for the similarity of effects of reinforcement and no consequences to the model (cf. Bandura, 1977), it is noteworthy in this study that the inconsistent discipline condition which involved repeated disapproval for hitting by one of the two agents resulted in levels of hitting behavior that were not significantly different from those in the consistent approval condition wherein both agents provided encouragement for aggressive behavior. It appears that the disapproval of one agent was made completely ineffective by the approval of the second agent. 3 In order to be certain that the significance level of this effect was not an artifact of the log transformations imposed on the frequency scores, a nonparametric analysis of the raw scores was conducted. The data were submitted to a Kruskal-Wallis, one-way analysis of variance. In this analysis too, the effect for experimental conditions was highly significant (H (3) = 13.48; p < .Ol).
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EXPERIMENT
2
The ineffectiveness of inconsistent discipline in reducing aggressive responding in Experiment 1 led to the second question about inconsistent discipline: What is the impact of interagent, inconsistent discipline of aggression on subsequent hitting behavior under conditions of consistent discipline? This was the issue addressed in Experiment 2. In this study, boys experienced one of three preliminary patterns of socialization of aggressive behavior similar to three of the four conditions in Experiment 1 (consistent ignore, consistent approval, or inconsistent discipline) and were then exposed to consistent discipline. The frequency of hitting responses during the consistent discipline test period following the three different, preliminary, socialization experiences was examined. Method
Design This study consisted of two phases: a training phase and a test phase. A between-subjects design was used consisting of three experimental conditions which were implemented in the training phase and were defined by the pattern of contingent response feedback provided by two socializing agents to the hitting behavior of the subjects. The three conditions were: (1) consistent approval; (2) consistent ignoring; and (3) inconsistent discipline (these conditions were replicated from Experiment 1). Training lasted for five “hit” trials, each of which was followed by a verbal response from each socializing agent or by ignoring by both agents in the consistent ignore condition. The test phase began with the sixth “hit” by the subject and consisted of consistent disapproval (negative verbal responses from both agents on each hit trial) for all subjects. The test phase ended when the subjects voluntarily terminated their hitting behavior as in Experiment 1. Subjects The sample of boys for this experiment was drawn from the same population samples in Experiment 1, except that only first-grade subjects were recruited. Fifty-nine boys were invited to participate, but, as in Experiment 1, they were given a clear choice about whether they wanted to engage in the hitting behavior with the “Bob0 doll” or not, and 12 of the boys declined participation. Thus, 47 boys entered the training phase of this study and were assigned randomly to the three experimental training conditions with the provision that any subject who discontinued his hitting responses during the training phase and thus before the test phase was begun was replaced in that training condition by the next subject to be tested. Seventeen subjects chose to terminate early, leaving a final sample of 30 first-grade boys (mean age = 7.0; range = 6.6 to 7.4)-10 in each of the three experimental training conditions.
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Procedure
The procedure for the training phase of this study was exactly the same as the procedure in Experiment 1. The subjects were brought individually to the laboratory trailer by the experimenter, introduced to the two adult women, provided with a cover story for their presence, introduced to the Bobo doll, and asked if they wanted to “box” the clown. If they agreed to participate, they were shown the hitting procedures, given a reason for the experimenter’s leaving the room, and told to discontinue hitting whenever they wished. Starting with the first hit and continuing through the fifth, the socializing agents responded verbally to each hit with one of the three patterns of reinforcement: consistent approval, inconsistent discipline, and consistent ignoring. Beginning with the sixth “hit”, but without any explicit indication to the subject, the pattern of responding by the socializing agents shifted to consistently negative feedback (consistent disapproval). After each subject indicated that he had terminated the hitting behavior by taking off the glove and sitting down at the coloring table, the experimenter returned to the room and engaged in the debriefing procedures. The child subject was then returned to the classroom. The dependent measure was the total number of hits for each subject during the test session. Thus, it was the frequency of hits which occurred following the training period and during the consistent punishment test session until the subject voluntarily discontinued hitting the Bobo doll. Results
and Discussion
Recall that this study includes the hitting response data only for the subjects who did not voluntarily terminate their participation during the training phase and before the test phase could be implemented. The frequencies of early terminating subjects were unevenly distributed across the three training conditions [x2(2) - 10.48; p = .005]: consistent approval training (n = 1); consistent “ignore” training (n = 2); and inconsistent discipline training (n = 14). Clarifying information regarding this problem is revealed by examination of the raw frequency scores for hitting in the four conditions of Experiment 1. These are presented in Table 2. Note that in the ignore condition of Experiment 1, and to a somewhat lesser extent in the consistent approval condition, the frequencies of hitting scores were evenly distributed. A very different pattern is evident in the inconsistent discipline condition. Half of these subjects terminated after a few hits, while the other half of the subjects continued their hitting behavior for long periods yielding very high frequencies. The uneven attrition in Experiment 2 corresponds to this pattern of hitting scores in the experimental conditions of Experiment 1. Thus, more of the hitting frequencies in the inconsistent discipline condition of Experiment 1 were less than six than
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AND PARKE
TABLE 2 RAW HITTING SCORES(FREQUENCIES) IN RANK ORDER IN EACH EXPEIUMENTAL CONDITION Experimental Subject rank within condition
Inconsistent discipline
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 1 1 3 5 70 87 97 128 191
Mean frequency of hitting
58.4
Consistent approval 1 3 5 6
condition Consistent ignore
Consistent disapproval
7 11 12 100 111
1 3 7 9 11 13 15 27 35 63
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6
26.3
18.4
1.5
7
was the case in the consistent ignore and consistent approval conditions of that study. Since subjects in Experiment 2 must have engaged in six or more hits to enter the test phase of Experiment 2, the reason for the differential dropout rate is evident. While this differential dropout rate in Experiment 2 provides a replication of the findings for inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1, it also suggests the possibility that the sample of boys in the inconsistent discipline condition of this study was different than those in the other two conditions. Thus, the results reported below must be interpreted as the resistance of hitting behavior to consistent disapproval during the test phase of the experiment for subjects who “self-selected” to continue their hitting behavior through the patterns of response feedback extant in the training conditions. As in Experiment 1, the frequency distribution of hitting responses was very skewed (positively) and the same log transformations were imposed on the scores. An equal n, one-way analysis of variance was applied to the transformed data. From the analysis, an effect for training conditions was evident at a confidence level of p = .059 [F(2,27) = 3.16].4 The training condition which resulted in the highest frequencies of hitting behavior during subsequent consistent disapproval was inconsistent discipline (mean raw frequency = 61.4). Mean frequencies of hitting in the face of 4 A nonparametric analysis of the raw scores was also conducted. As was the case for the parametric ANOVA on the transformed scores, a Kruskal-Wallis, one-way analysis of variance indicated that the differences among the three means was marginally significant (H (2) = 4.64; .05 < p < .lO).
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DISCIPLINE
535
consistent punishment were lowest in the training condition where the socializing agents had ignored the aggressive behavior (mean raw frequency = 31.0) prior to consistent punishment. An a posteriori test of the differences among the three means using the Newman-Keuls procedure indicated a significant difference between the mean number of aggressive responses in the ignore and inconsistent discipline conditions (p < .05). Levels of hitting during consistent disapproval by children in the consistent approval training condition (mean raw frequency = 36.7) were intermediate to those in the ignore and inconsistent punishment conditions and were not significantly different from either. This pattern of results, though only marginally significant, parallels the effects of interagent inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1 and the effects of intruagent inconsistent punishment on aggressive responding during consistent punishment and extinction in the study by Deur and Parke (1970). However, caution must be exercised in interpreting the findings from Experiment 2 because of the greater attrition of subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Given this effect of inconsistent discipline and in light of the earlier discussion of this issue, a conservative interpretation of the findings from Experiment 2 is: The boys who persisted in aggressive behavior in the face of a brief period of inconsistent discipline were more aggressive during the subsequent period of consistent discipline than were the boys who engaged in this behavior under the prior conditions of consistent approval or of consistent ignoring by socialization agents. GENERAL
DISCUSSION
The effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on boys’ aggressive behavior found in these experimental studies corresponds closely to the relation between these variables observed in correlational studies. In addition, the findings from the present experiments provide some clarification of this relation by demonstrating a causal link between interagent, inconsistent discipline and aggressive hitting behavior. The bimodal pattern of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline conditions of these studies corresponds to findings from two other studies dealing with interagent, inconsistent discipline. Recall the findings reported by Meyers (1944) that conflicting commands given by two adults to nursery school children produced uncertainty and, for many of the children, emotional upset. In the present studies, informal observations of the boys by the authors through the one-way window revealed similar reactions by the subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Some of the subjects appeared quite disconcerted by the conflicting cues from the socializing agents and behaved in a very cautious and inhibited manner. These subjects made a few tentative hits but soon discontinued their hitting behavior and withdrew from this activity by sitting down. In contrast, other boys in this condition appeared annoyed and even angry in
536
SAWIN
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PARKE
response to the conflicting cues from the socializing agents. Their hitting behavior was noticeably more vigorous and continued for long periods of time. These two predominant modes of reacting to the inconsistent discipline in the present study are also similar to the findings noted earlier for the relation between interparental disagreement concerning disciplinary practices and adolescent aggression (Bandura, Note 1; Bandura & Walters, 1959). Conflict between parents over disciplinary practices was greater in the families of both Sri&&d and aggressive boys than in the families of nonaggressive and assertive boys. If viewed alone, the findings from the two studies reported here would be limited in their generalizability to natural child-rearing contexts due to the somewhat artificial nature of the laboratory context and the nature of the response measure. The artificiality of the laboratory context was mandated by considerations of experimental control since the causal link and the direction of effects between inconsistent discipline and aggression was the primary focus of these studies. The response measure utilized in these studies (aggressive hitting of the Bobo doll) was chosen for two reasons. First, ethical considerations limit the ways that we can assess aggressive behavior in children and preclude more direct measures of interpersonal aggression. Second, the measure of aggressive behavior utilized is the same as those used in the earlier studies of intraagent, inconsistent punishment and thus permit a more direct comparison of the findings for the effects of intra- and interagent inconsistent discipline on aggression in boys. The question of the extent to which limitations on ecological validity served to limit generalizability of the findings from these studies is answered by the similarity of the experimental findings and findings from field studies and other studies conducted in more natural contexts. Consideration of the experimental findings in combination with the findings from field studies provides evidence for the deleterious influences of inconsistent discipline on aggression. The moderating influence on these effects of such factors as dispositional levels of aggressiveness and, possibly, the very early and/or enduring socialization histories of aggression warrant further investigation. Longitudinal research in natural contexts is needed especially in order to address these questions thoroughly. In particular, two aspects of children’s reactions to inconsistent discipline should be examined in future research: (1) children’s perceptions and understanding of the meaning of inconsistent discipline, and (2) their affective responses to inconsistent discipline. Evaluation of the first issue might focus on the ways that different patterns of socialization affect children’s expectations about the consequences of their behavior (Bandura, 1973). Children who receive consistent feedback from socializing agents are able to form reliable expectations about the consequences of their behavior and modify that behavior ac-
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cordingly. In the case of discipline for aggressive behavior, children who consistently experience disapproval for behaving aggressively expect aggressive behavior to be met with disapproval and are able to utilize this knowledge to inhibit aggression. Children who receive inconsistent feedback for aggressive behavior are unable to form such reliable expectations and are apt to be unsure about how to behave. In the case of simultaneous or alternating approval and disapproval for aggressive behavior, children are placed in an approach-avoidance situation which may be confusing and frustrating. Indications from the present study are that children may respond to this confusion and frustration either by withdrawing and inhibiting their aggressive responding (avoidance) or by becoming aroused, possibly angered, and highly aggressive (approach). Should such inconsistent patterns of socialization for aggression persist over time for the later children, it would be expected to foster or at least maintain aggressiveness and, as indicated in Experiment 2, the aggressive behavior of these children may become quite resistant to efforts to suppress that behavior by means of consistent socialization (consistent disapproval). REFERENCES Andry, R. G. Delinquency and parental pathology. London: Metheun, 1960. Bandura, A. Aggression: A social /earning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Bandura, A. Social /earning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. Adolescent aggression. New York: Ronald Press, 1959. Banks, R. K. Persistance to continuous punishment following intermittent punishment training. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1966, 71, 373-377.(a) Banks, R. K. Persistance to continuous punishment and nonreward following training with intermittent punishment and nonreward. Psychonomic Science, 1966, 5, 105-106.(b) Baumrind, D. Child-care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 1967, 75, 43-88. Becker, W. Consequences of different kinds of parental discipline. In L. W. Hoffman & M. L. Hoflhran (Eds.), Review of child development research. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964. Vol. 1. Deur, J. L., & Parke, R. D. Effects of inconsistent punishment on aggression in children. Developmental Psychology, 1970, 2, 403-411. Fallon, D. Increased resistance to extinction following punishment and reward: High frustration tolerance or low frustration magnitude?Journal ofcomparative and Physiological Psychology, 1971, 77, 245-255. Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. Unraveling juvenile delinquency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1950. Holz, W., & Azrin, N. H. Discriminative properties of punishment. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1961, 4, 225-232. Holz, W., & Azrin, N. H. Interactions between the discriminative and aversive properties of punishment. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1962, 5, 229-234. Katz, R. Interactions between the facilitative and inhibitory effects of a punishing stimulus in the control of children’s hitting behavior. Child Development, 1971, 42, 1433-1446. Kirk, R. Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences. Belmont, Calif.: Brooks, 1968.
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Martin, B. Reward and punishment associated with the same goal response: A factor in the learning of motives. Psychological Bulletin, 1963, 60, 441-451. Martin, B. Parent-child relations. In D. Horowitz (Ed.), Review of chi/d development research. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1975. Vol. 4. McCord, W., McCord, J., & Howard, A. Familial correlates of aggression in non-delinquent male children. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1961, 62, 79-93. McCord, W., McCord, J., & Zola, I. K. Origins of crime. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1959. Meyers, C. E. The effect of conflicting authority on the child. University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 1944, 70, No. 409, 31-98. Parke, R. D., & Duer, J. L. Schedule of punishment and inhibition of aggression in children. Developmental Psychology, 1972, 7, 266-269. Parke, R. D., Deur, J. L., & Sawin, D. B. The intermittent punishment effect in humans: Conditioning or adaptation? Psychonomic Science, 1970, 18, 193-194. Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., & Levin, H. Patterns of childrearing. Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1957. Stouwie, R. J. Inconsistent verbal instructions and children’s resistance-to-temptation behavior. Child Development. 1971, 42, 1517-1531. Walters, R. H., & Parke, R. D. The influence of punishment and related disciplinary techniques on the social behavior of children: Theory and empirical findings. In B. A. Maher (Ed.), Progress in experimental personality research. New York: Academic Press, 1967. Vol. 4. Winer, B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
REFERENCE
NOTES
1. Bandura, A. Relationship offamily patterns to child behavior disorders. Progress Report, Stanford University, Project No. M-1734, United States Public Health Service, 1960. 2. Martin, B., & Hetherington, E. M. Family interaction and aggression, withdrawal, and nondeviancy in children. Progress Report, University of Wisconsin, Project NO. MH12474, National Institutes of Mental Health, 1971. RECEIVED:
July 5, 1978;
REVISED:
January 3, 1979, February 21, 1979.
OF EXPERIMENTAL
CHILD
PSYCHOLOGY
28, 525-538 (1979)
Inconsistent Discipline of Aggression in Young Boys DOUGLAS University
B. SAWIN of Texas
at Austin
AND
Ross D. PARKE University
of IIIinois
at Champaign-Urbana
Two studies assessed the effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on aggression in young boys. One agent responded to hitting behavior with verbal disapproval while another agent responded with verbal approval. In Experiment 1, the frequencies of hitting responses of first- and second-grade boys were examined under four schedules of adult reactions: (1) consistent disapproval; (2) consistent ignoring: (3) consistent approval; and (4) inconsistent discipline (approval from one agent and disapproval from the other). Aggressive responding was least frequent when met with consistent disapproval whereas the frequency of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline condition was not different than that in the consistent approval and ignore conditions. In Experiment 2, the frequencies of hitting responses were examined under a schedule of consistent disapproval following a brief schedule of either: (1) inconsistent discipline; (2) consistent approval; or (3) consistent ignoring. Hitting behavior during consistent disapproval was greatest following a period of inconsistent discipline and least frequent following a history of consistent ignoring. These findings replicate the results of correlational field studies of the relation between inconsistent discipline and aggression in boys. In addition, these experimental studies demonstrate a causal link and the direction of effects between these variables. Inconsistent discipline has been implicated as a contributor to children’s aggression in a number of studies. Gleuck and Gleuck (1950) found that parents of delinquent boys were more “erratic” in their disciplinary practices than were parents of nondelinquent boys. Similarly, McCord, McCord, and Zola (1959) have reported several patterns of inconsistent discipline which were significant antecedents of subsequent conviction for criminal behavior. Among these types of discipline, the pattern wherein
This research was supported in part by a grant from the National Science Foundation (Gs-31885X) to Ross D. Parke. Requests for reprints should be addressed to Douglas B. sawin, Department of psychology, University of Texas at Austin, Mezes Hall 330, Austin, TX 78712. 525 0022-0965/79/060525-14$02.00/O Copyright Q 1979 by Academic Ress. Inc. All rights of reproduction in any form reserved.
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one parent was punitive and the other was lax, or the parents varied inconsistently between the two methods, was the familial context in which the largest percentage of the convicted juvenile delinquents were socialized. In a subsequent study comparing the disciplinary practices of parents of aggressive boys and parents of nonaggressive boys, these investigators (McCord, McCord, & Howard, 1961) found the parents of aggressive boys were inconsistent, with one parent punitive and the other permissive. This relationship is not restricted to deviant samples. A similar relation between inconsistent parenting practices and children’s aggression has been reported by Martin and Hetherington (Note 2), Baumrind (1967), and Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) who used samples of normal, nondeviant children. Findings from a study of adolescent aggression reported by Bandura and Walters (1959) and Bandura (Note 1) indicate that the relation between inconsistent discipline and aggression may not be a simple one. They found that interparental disagreement concerning disciplinary practices was greater in the families of both aggressive and inhibited boys than in the families of both nonaggressive and assertive boys. Thus there are correlational findings from a number of studies indicating a link between patterns of inconsistent parent discipline and children’s aggression. However, the causal inconclusiveness of these correlational field studies indicates the need for controlled study of this issue. Further, the definition of inconsistency has shifted across these field studies and clear distinctions concerning the specific effects of different types of inconsistency are not available from these earlier investigations. Two types of inconsistency need to be distinguished: intra- and interagent inconsistency. Intraagent inconsistency refers to the extent to which a single agent treats violations in a different manner each time they occur while interagent inconsistency refers to differences between two agents in their treatment of the same violation on each occasion (Becker, 1964; Martin, 1975; Walters & Parke, 1967). Recent laboratory studies have yielded information concerning the effects of intraagent, inconsistent punishment on aggressive behavior in children. Park and Deur (1972) found that inconsistent punishment of aggression resulted in significantly more hitting responses by young boys than consistent punishment of the aggressive hitting behavior. In a related study, Deur and Parke (1970) demonstrated that inconsistent punishment of aggressive hitting behavior also led to increased resistance of the hitting responses to modification by continuous punishment and extinction. Similar findings have been reported by Katz (1971). Explanations of these effects in earlier research have been based on learning theory models. Parke and Deur (1972) explained the higher levels of aggressive hitting in the intraagent, inconsistent punishment condition
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consistent punishment were lowest in the training condition where the socializing agents had ignored the aggressive behavior (mean raw frequency = 31.0) prior to consistent punishment. An a posteriori test of the differences among the three means using the Newman-Keuls procedure indicated a significant difference between the mean number of aggressive responses in the ignore and inconsistent discipline conditions (p < .05). Levels of hitting during consistent disapproval by children in the consistent approval training condition (mean raw frequency = 36.7) were intermediate to those in the ignore and inconsistent punishment conditions and were not significantly different from either. This pattern of results, though only marginally significant, parallels the effects of interagent inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1 and the effects of intruagent inconsistent punishment on aggressive responding during consistent punishment and extinction in the study by Deur and Parke (1970). However, caution must be exercised in interpreting the findings from Experiment 2 because of the greater attrition of subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Given this effect of inconsistent discipline and in light of the earlier discussion of this issue, a conservative interpretation of the findings from Experiment 2 is: The boys who persisted in aggressive behavior in the face of a brief period of inconsistent discipline were more aggressive during the subsequent period of consistent discipline than were the boys who engaged in this behavior under the prior conditions of consistent approval or of consistent ignoring by socialization agents. GENERAL
DISCUSSION
The effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on boys’ aggressive behavior found in these experimental studies corresponds closely to the relation between these variables observed in correlational studies. In addition, the findings from the present experiments provide some clarification of this relation by demonstrating a causal link between interagent, inconsistent discipline and aggressive hitting behavior. The bimodal pattern of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline conditions of these studies corresponds to findings from two other studies dealing with interagent, inconsistent discipline. Recall the findings reported by Meyers (1944) that conflicting commands given by two adults to nursery school children produced uncertainty and, for many of the children, emotional upset. In the present studies, informal observations of the boys by the authors through the one-way window revealed similar reactions by the subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Some of the subjects appeared quite disconcerted by the conflicting cues from the socializing agents and behaved in a very cautious and inhibited manner. These subjects made a few tentative hits but soon discontinued their hitting behavior and withdrew from this activity by sitting down. In contrast, other boys in this condition appeared annoyed and even angry in
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of the paradigm and therefore findings to natural child-rearing
AND PARKE
to permit greater generalization contexts.
EXPERIMENT
of the
1
The first experiment was designed to compare the effects on children’s aggressive responding of four different patterns of simultaneous, response-contingent, verbal reactions by zwo socializing agents. The four patterns were: (1) consistent disapproval wherein both agents responded negatively to the hitting responses of the subjects; (2) consistent ignoring which was an extinction schedule wherein both agents ignored the hitting behavior; (3) consistent approval which consisted of both agents responding with positive, encouraging comments contingent on the hitting behavior; and (4) inconsistent discipline wherein one agent responded to hitting responses with positive comments and the other agent responded to the same responses with negative comments. The hypothesis of central interest was that inconsistent discipline, in the form of contrasting positive and negative verbal responses from two socializing agents, would result in significantly more aggressive behavior than consistent negative reactions by the two agents. Consistently positive reactions by the two agents were also expected to result in higher frequencies of hitting behavior than consistent negative reactions to hitting behavior. Method Subjects
Fifty, fist- and second-grade boys served as subjects (mean age = 7.42 years; range = 6.42 to 8.25 years).’ The boys were recruited from their regular classrooms in a suburban elementary school serving lowermiddle- and middle-class neighborhoods. All of the boys were white. After each child was familiarized with the experimental context, but before actual participation and before implementation of the response feedback manipulations, they were given a choice about whether they wanted to participate in the hitting behavior or not. Ten subjects chose not to participate, leaving a total of 40 subjects. These subjects were randomly assigned to four treatment conditions with the restriction that ’ Only boys were recruited to participate in these experiments because; (a) aggression in boys was the focus of the field research from which the hypotheses of this study were derived; (b) the earlier experimental studies of inconsistent punishment of aggression have utilized a dependent measure of aggressive behavior (the “Bobo” variation of a punching bag) that would not be appropriate for girls and a primary purpose of this study was the further exploration of findings from the earlier research, thus a comparable response measure was called for; (c) though certainly an important issue and one that ought to be pursued in future research, sex differences in the processes examined here were not of primary interest at this point and would have required an expansion of the research that was not warranted at this stage of the work in this area or by the central theoretical arguments which guided the present research.
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equal numbers of tirst and second graders were assigned to each condition. Thus, 10 subjects were assigned to each of four experimental conditions. Procedure
The subjects were brought individually from their classrooms to a mobile laboratory trailer by the experimenter-a white female in her late twenties. In the experimental room of the trailer was a Bobo doll apparatus which consisted of a clown painted on a large wooden box with a padded-cushion stomach (Deur & Parke, 1970). Seated in the room on either side of the punching apparatus were two adult females who were engaged in “paper work” and who would serve as the socializing agents.2 Upon entering the room, the subject was introduced to the two adult women by name. The subject was then shown the punching apparatus and informed that “Bobo” was like a punching bag that was being tried out for a company that wanted to see if children would want to hit him. The child was then asked if he wanted to “hit” the Bobo doll, and if he said yes, the procedures were explained in more detail. Each subject who chose to participate was asked to put on a boxing glove and to stand in his “corner, like in a real boxing match” (approximately 2.5 m from the Bobo doll) and told that after each “hit” he must return to his corner. This procedure was adopted to allow sufficient time for the response feedback by the socializing agents to be given for each hit. The experimenter then led the subject through two “hit” trials to be sure the child understood the procedures about returning to his corner between hits. Following the two “familiarization” trials, the experimenter made an excuse to leave the room and enter the observation room to record the frequency of hits through a one-way window. Before leaving she explained that the two women would be “in charge.” In addition she explained that when he was ready to stop hitting the Bobo clown, he simply needed to take off the boxing glove and sit down at a small table where he could draw with the crayons and paper provided there until she returned. After the experimenter had left the testing room, and beginning with the first hit by the subject, the two adult women responded to the subject’s hitting behavior with one of four schedules of verbal feedback: 2 Two women, as opposed to two men or a man and a woman, were utilized as the socializing agents in these experiments for two reasons: (a) At this stage in the progress of the experimental research of the issues regarding inconsistent discipline, the effects of the sex of the socializing agent were not of primary interest; and (b) examination of these effects and the interaction effects involving sex of agent, positive vs negative feedback, and order of positive vs negative feedback would have required a much more elaborate and complex research design that was not warranted at this point.
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(1) Consistent disapproval: Both agents made a disapproving comment about each hit. (2) Consistent approval: Both agents made an approving comment about each hit. (3) Znconsistenf discipline: One agent made a disapproving comment about each hit while the other agent made an approving comment (which agent was “approving” and which was “disapproving,” and order of positive and negative comments were counterbalanced across subjects). (4) Consistenf ignore: Both agents ignored the hitting behavior and simply continued with their work. The specific approving and disapproving comments used by the agents are presented in Table 1. The order of their presentation for each subject was random, but determined a priori. Though the socializing agents were unavoidably aware of the treatment administered to each subject, they were unaware of the hypothesis being tested. The experimenter who introduced the subjects to the procedure was unaware of the condition to which subjects were assigned and also unaware of the hypothesis of the study. The dependent measure was the total number of hits by each subject before he elected to terminate the hitting behavior. Soon after each subject sat down at the coloring table to signal that he had finished, the experimenter returned to the room, and a carefully constructed debriefing was undertaken by all three women. This debriefing included: (1) friendly comments by the socializing agents designed to let the subject know that they were not angry with him; (2) a discussion of the distinctions between hitting a mechanical punching machine and real persons; (3) some comments about role taking and empathy in regard to the consequences to victims of hitting; (4) some discussion about nonaggressive ways of settling disagreements and arguments; and (5) some probe questions to assure that the child understood the discussion about aggression. The subject was then asked to keep the TABLE
1
APPROVING AND DISAPPROVING COMMENTS MADE BY SOCIALIZING AGENTS IN RESPONSE TO THE HITTING BEHAVIOR OF THE CHILDREN
Approving
comments
I think that’s fine when you do that. That’s fine; I think hitting’s okay. Hey, great. Tremendous. Super. I think hitting’s all right. Oh, wow. Nice going.
Disapproving
comments
I don’t like it when you do that. That’s terrible; I don’t like hitting. That’s nasty. Horrible. That’s not cool. I don’t think hitting’s nice. That’s mean. That’s bad.
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“game” a secret from the other children so that it would be a surprise for them and was then returned to the classroom. Results and Discussion
The distribution of hitting frequencies was positively skewed. In order to avoid an undue influence of the extreme scores on the group means and to reduce the extreme heterogeneity of the group variances, a log transformation (X’ = log X; Kirk, 1968; Winer, 1971) was imposed on the hitting frequency scores prior to analysis. These transformed scores were then submitted to a one-way, equal n, analysis of variance for the four treatment conditions. A significant main effect was found for the experimental conditions [F(3,36) = 5.7, p = .003].3 The most hitting behavior occurred in the inconsistent discipline condition (mean raw frequency = 58.4) and, as expected, the least amount of hitting occurred in the consistent disapproval condition (X = 1.5) while hitting in the consistent approval and consistent ignore conditions was intermediate to that in two extreme conditions (X = 26.3 andX = 18.4, respectively). An a posteriori test of the differences among the four means using the Newman-Keuls procedure (Winer, 1971) indicated that significantly more hitting occurred in the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignore conditions than in the consistent disapproval condition (p < .Ol). The differences in the mean frequencies of hitting among the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignoring conditions were not statistically significant. Thus, as expected, interagent, inconsistent discipline in the form of disapproval from one agent and approval from a second resulted in significantly higher levels of hitting behavior than resulted from consistent disapproval from the two agents. Of particular interest was the fact that there were no significant differences in the mean frequencies of hitting among the inconsistent discipline, consistent approval, and consistent ignoring conditions. While there is precedence from research on the vicarious reinforcement of aggression for the similarity of effects of reinforcement and no consequences to the model (cf. Bandura, 1977), it is noteworthy in this study that the inconsistent discipline condition which involved repeated disapproval for hitting by one of the two agents resulted in levels of hitting behavior that were not significantly different from those in the consistent approval condition wherein both agents provided encouragement for aggressive behavior. It appears that the disapproval of one agent was made completely ineffective by the approval of the second agent. 3 In order to be certain that the significance level of this effect was not an artifact of the log transformations imposed on the frequency scores, a nonparametric analysis of the raw scores was conducted. The data were submitted to a Kruskal-Wallis, one-way analysis of variance. In this analysis too, the effect for experimental conditions was highly significant (H (3) = 13.48; p < .Ol).
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EXPERIMENT
2
The ineffectiveness of inconsistent discipline in reducing aggressive responding in Experiment 1 led to the second question about inconsistent discipline: What is the impact of interagent, inconsistent discipline of aggression on subsequent hitting behavior under conditions of consistent discipline? This was the issue addressed in Experiment 2. In this study, boys experienced one of three preliminary patterns of socialization of aggressive behavior similar to three of the four conditions in Experiment 1 (consistent ignore, consistent approval, or inconsistent discipline) and were then exposed to consistent discipline. The frequency of hitting responses during the consistent discipline test period following the three different, preliminary, socialization experiences was examined. Method
Design This study consisted of two phases: a training phase and a test phase. A between-subjects design was used consisting of three experimental conditions which were implemented in the training phase and were defined by the pattern of contingent response feedback provided by two socializing agents to the hitting behavior of the subjects. The three conditions were: (1) consistent approval; (2) consistent ignoring; and (3) inconsistent discipline (these conditions were replicated from Experiment 1). Training lasted for five “hit” trials, each of which was followed by a verbal response from each socializing agent or by ignoring by both agents in the consistent ignore condition. The test phase began with the sixth “hit” by the subject and consisted of consistent disapproval (negative verbal responses from both agents on each hit trial) for all subjects. The test phase ended when the subjects voluntarily terminated their hitting behavior as in Experiment 1. Subjects The sample of boys for this experiment was drawn from the same population samples in Experiment 1, except that only first-grade subjects were recruited. Fifty-nine boys were invited to participate, but, as in Experiment 1, they were given a clear choice about whether they wanted to engage in the hitting behavior with the “Bob0 doll” or not, and 12 of the boys declined participation. Thus, 47 boys entered the training phase of this study and were assigned randomly to the three experimental training conditions with the provision that any subject who discontinued his hitting responses during the training phase and thus before the test phase was begun was replaced in that training condition by the next subject to be tested. Seventeen subjects chose to terminate early, leaving a final sample of 30 first-grade boys (mean age = 7.0; range = 6.6 to 7.4)-10 in each of the three experimental training conditions.
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Procedure
The procedure for the training phase of this study was exactly the same as the procedure in Experiment 1. The subjects were brought individually to the laboratory trailer by the experimenter, introduced to the two adult women, provided with a cover story for their presence, introduced to the Bobo doll, and asked if they wanted to “box” the clown. If they agreed to participate, they were shown the hitting procedures, given a reason for the experimenter’s leaving the room, and told to discontinue hitting whenever they wished. Starting with the first hit and continuing through the fifth, the socializing agents responded verbally to each hit with one of the three patterns of reinforcement: consistent approval, inconsistent discipline, and consistent ignoring. Beginning with the sixth “hit”, but without any explicit indication to the subject, the pattern of responding by the socializing agents shifted to consistently negative feedback (consistent disapproval). After each subject indicated that he had terminated the hitting behavior by taking off the glove and sitting down at the coloring table, the experimenter returned to the room and engaged in the debriefing procedures. The child subject was then returned to the classroom. The dependent measure was the total number of hits for each subject during the test session. Thus, it was the frequency of hits which occurred following the training period and during the consistent punishment test session until the subject voluntarily discontinued hitting the Bobo doll. Results
and Discussion
Recall that this study includes the hitting response data only for the subjects who did not voluntarily terminate their participation during the training phase and before the test phase could be implemented. The frequencies of early terminating subjects were unevenly distributed across the three training conditions [x2(2) - 10.48; p = .005]: consistent approval training (n = 1); consistent “ignore” training (n = 2); and inconsistent discipline training (n = 14). Clarifying information regarding this problem is revealed by examination of the raw frequency scores for hitting in the four conditions of Experiment 1. These are presented in Table 2. Note that in the ignore condition of Experiment 1, and to a somewhat lesser extent in the consistent approval condition, the frequencies of hitting scores were evenly distributed. A very different pattern is evident in the inconsistent discipline condition. Half of these subjects terminated after a few hits, while the other half of the subjects continued their hitting behavior for long periods yielding very high frequencies. The uneven attrition in Experiment 2 corresponds to this pattern of hitting scores in the experimental conditions of Experiment 1. Thus, more of the hitting frequencies in the inconsistent discipline condition of Experiment 1 were less than six than
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TABLE 2 RAW HITTING SCORES(FREQUENCIES) IN RANK ORDER IN EACH EXPEIUMENTAL CONDITION Experimental Subject rank within condition
Inconsistent discipline
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
1 1 1 3 5 70 87 97 128 191
Mean frequency of hitting
58.4
Consistent approval 1 3 5 6
condition Consistent ignore
Consistent disapproval
7 11 12 100 111
1 3 7 9 11 13 15 27 35 63
1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 6
26.3
18.4
1.5
7
was the case in the consistent ignore and consistent approval conditions of that study. Since subjects in Experiment 2 must have engaged in six or more hits to enter the test phase of Experiment 2, the reason for the differential dropout rate is evident. While this differential dropout rate in Experiment 2 provides a replication of the findings for inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1, it also suggests the possibility that the sample of boys in the inconsistent discipline condition of this study was different than those in the other two conditions. Thus, the results reported below must be interpreted as the resistance of hitting behavior to consistent disapproval during the test phase of the experiment for subjects who “self-selected” to continue their hitting behavior through the patterns of response feedback extant in the training conditions. As in Experiment 1, the frequency distribution of hitting responses was very skewed (positively) and the same log transformations were imposed on the scores. An equal n, one-way analysis of variance was applied to the transformed data. From the analysis, an effect for training conditions was evident at a confidence level of p = .059 [F(2,27) = 3.16].4 The training condition which resulted in the highest frequencies of hitting behavior during subsequent consistent disapproval was inconsistent discipline (mean raw frequency = 61.4). Mean frequencies of hitting in the face of 4 A nonparametric analysis of the raw scores was also conducted. As was the case for the parametric ANOVA on the transformed scores, a Kruskal-Wallis, one-way analysis of variance indicated that the differences among the three means was marginally significant (H (2) = 4.64; .05 < p < .lO).
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consistent punishment were lowest in the training condition where the socializing agents had ignored the aggressive behavior (mean raw frequency = 31.0) prior to consistent punishment. An a posteriori test of the differences among the three means using the Newman-Keuls procedure indicated a significant difference between the mean number of aggressive responses in the ignore and inconsistent discipline conditions (p < .05). Levels of hitting during consistent disapproval by children in the consistent approval training condition (mean raw frequency = 36.7) were intermediate to those in the ignore and inconsistent punishment conditions and were not significantly different from either. This pattern of results, though only marginally significant, parallels the effects of interagent inconsistent discipline in Experiment 1 and the effects of intruagent inconsistent punishment on aggressive responding during consistent punishment and extinction in the study by Deur and Parke (1970). However, caution must be exercised in interpreting the findings from Experiment 2 because of the greater attrition of subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Given this effect of inconsistent discipline and in light of the earlier discussion of this issue, a conservative interpretation of the findings from Experiment 2 is: The boys who persisted in aggressive behavior in the face of a brief period of inconsistent discipline were more aggressive during the subsequent period of consistent discipline than were the boys who engaged in this behavior under the prior conditions of consistent approval or of consistent ignoring by socialization agents. GENERAL
DISCUSSION
The effects of interagent, inconsistent discipline on boys’ aggressive behavior found in these experimental studies corresponds closely to the relation between these variables observed in correlational studies. In addition, the findings from the present experiments provide some clarification of this relation by demonstrating a causal link between interagent, inconsistent discipline and aggressive hitting behavior. The bimodal pattern of hitting responses in the inconsistent discipline conditions of these studies corresponds to findings from two other studies dealing with interagent, inconsistent discipline. Recall the findings reported by Meyers (1944) that conflicting commands given by two adults to nursery school children produced uncertainty and, for many of the children, emotional upset. In the present studies, informal observations of the boys by the authors through the one-way window revealed similar reactions by the subjects in the inconsistent discipline condition. Some of the subjects appeared quite disconcerted by the conflicting cues from the socializing agents and behaved in a very cautious and inhibited manner. These subjects made a few tentative hits but soon discontinued their hitting behavior and withdrew from this activity by sitting down. In contrast, other boys in this condition appeared annoyed and even angry in
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PARKE
response to the conflicting cues from the socializing agents. Their hitting behavior was noticeably more vigorous and continued for long periods of time. These two predominant modes of reacting to the inconsistent discipline in the present study are also similar to the findings noted earlier for the relation between interparental disagreement concerning disciplinary practices and adolescent aggression (Bandura, Note 1; Bandura & Walters, 1959). Conflict between parents over disciplinary practices was greater in the families of both Sri&&d and aggressive boys than in the families of nonaggressive and assertive boys. If viewed alone, the findings from the two studies reported here would be limited in their generalizability to natural child-rearing contexts due to the somewhat artificial nature of the laboratory context and the nature of the response measure. The artificiality of the laboratory context was mandated by considerations of experimental control since the causal link and the direction of effects between inconsistent discipline and aggression was the primary focus of these studies. The response measure utilized in these studies (aggressive hitting of the Bobo doll) was chosen for two reasons. First, ethical considerations limit the ways that we can assess aggressive behavior in children and preclude more direct measures of interpersonal aggression. Second, the measure of aggressive behavior utilized is the same as those used in the earlier studies of intraagent, inconsistent punishment and thus permit a more direct comparison of the findings for the effects of intra- and interagent inconsistent discipline on aggression in boys. The question of the extent to which limitations on ecological validity served to limit generalizability of the findings from these studies is answered by the similarity of the experimental findings and findings from field studies and other studies conducted in more natural contexts. Consideration of the experimental findings in combination with the findings from field studies provides evidence for the deleterious influences of inconsistent discipline on aggression. The moderating influence on these effects of such factors as dispositional levels of aggressiveness and, possibly, the very early and/or enduring socialization histories of aggression warrant further investigation. Longitudinal research in natural contexts is needed especially in order to address these questions thoroughly. In particular, two aspects of children’s reactions to inconsistent discipline should be examined in future research: (1) children’s perceptions and understanding of the meaning of inconsistent discipline, and (2) their affective responses to inconsistent discipline. Evaluation of the first issue might focus on the ways that different patterns of socialization affect children’s expectations about the consequences of their behavior (Bandura, 1973). Children who receive consistent feedback from socializing agents are able to form reliable expectations about the consequences of their behavior and modify that behavior ac-
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cordingly. In the case of discipline for aggressive behavior, children who consistently experience disapproval for behaving aggressively expect aggressive behavior to be met with disapproval and are able to utilize this knowledge to inhibit aggression. Children who receive inconsistent feedback for aggressive behavior are unable to form such reliable expectations and are apt to be unsure about how to behave. In the case of simultaneous or alternating approval and disapproval for aggressive behavior, children are placed in an approach-avoidance situation which may be confusing and frustrating. Indications from the present study are that children may respond to this confusion and frustration either by withdrawing and inhibiting their aggressive responding (avoidance) or by becoming aroused, possibly angered, and highly aggressive (approach). Should such inconsistent patterns of socialization for aggression persist over time for the later children, it would be expected to foster or at least maintain aggressiveness and, as indicated in Experiment 2, the aggressive behavior of these children may become quite resistant to efforts to suppress that behavior by means of consistent socialization (consistent disapproval). REFERENCES Andry, R. G. Delinquency and parental pathology. London: Metheun, 1960. Bandura, A. Aggression: A social /earning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1973. Bandura, A. Social /earning theory. Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice-Hall, 1977. Bandura, A., & Walters, R. H. Adolescent aggression. New York: Ronald Press, 1959. Banks, R. K. Persistance to continuous punishment following intermittent punishment training. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 1966, 71, 373-377.(a) Banks, R. K. Persistance to continuous punishment and nonreward following training with intermittent punishment and nonreward. Psychonomic Science, 1966, 5, 105-106.(b) Baumrind, D. Child-care practices anteceding three patterns of preschool behavior. Genetic Psychology Monographs, 1967, 75, 43-88. Becker, W. Consequences of different kinds of parental discipline. In L. W. Hoffman & M. L. Hoflhran (Eds.), Review of child development research. New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1964. Vol. 1. Deur, J. L., & Parke, R. D. Effects of inconsistent punishment on aggression in children. Developmental Psychology, 1970, 2, 403-411. Fallon, D. Increased resistance to extinction following punishment and reward: High frustration tolerance or low frustration magnitude?Journal ofcomparative and Physiological Psychology, 1971, 77, 245-255. Glueck, S., & Glueck, E. Unraveling juvenile delinquency. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard Univ. Press, 1950. Holz, W., & Azrin, N. H. Discriminative properties of punishment. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1961, 4, 225-232. Holz, W., & Azrin, N. H. Interactions between the discriminative and aversive properties of punishment. Journal of Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 1962, 5, 229-234. Katz, R. Interactions between the facilitative and inhibitory effects of a punishing stimulus in the control of children’s hitting behavior. Child Development, 1971, 42, 1433-1446. Kirk, R. Experimental design: Procedures for the behavioral sciences. Belmont, Calif.: Brooks, 1968.
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Martin, B. Reward and punishment associated with the same goal response: A factor in the learning of motives. Psychological Bulletin, 1963, 60, 441-451. Martin, B. Parent-child relations. In D. Horowitz (Ed.), Review of chi/d development research. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 1975. Vol. 4. McCord, W., McCord, J., & Howard, A. Familial correlates of aggression in non-delinquent male children. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 1961, 62, 79-93. McCord, W., McCord, J., & Zola, I. K. Origins of crime. New York: Columbia Univ. Press, 1959. Meyers, C. E. The effect of conflicting authority on the child. University of Iowa Studies in Child Welfare, 1944, 70, No. 409, 31-98. Parke, R. D., & Duer, J. L. Schedule of punishment and inhibition of aggression in children. Developmental Psychology, 1972, 7, 266-269. Parke, R. D., Deur, J. L., & Sawin, D. B. The intermittent punishment effect in humans: Conditioning or adaptation? Psychonomic Science, 1970, 18, 193-194. Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., & Levin, H. Patterns of childrearing. Evanston, Ill.: Row, Peterson, 1957. Stouwie, R. J. Inconsistent verbal instructions and children’s resistance-to-temptation behavior. Child Development. 1971, 42, 1517-1531. Walters, R. H., & Parke, R. D. The influence of punishment and related disciplinary techniques on the social behavior of children: Theory and empirical findings. In B. A. Maher (Ed.), Progress in experimental personality research. New York: Academic Press, 1967. Vol. 4. Winer, B. J. Statistical principles in experimental design. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1971.
REFERENCE
NOTES
1. Bandura, A. Relationship offamily patterns to child behavior disorders. Progress Report, Stanford University, Project No. M-1734, United States Public Health Service, 1960. 2. Martin, B., & Hetherington, E. M. Family interaction and aggression, withdrawal, and nondeviancy in children. Progress Report, University of Wisconsin, Project NO. MH12474, National Institutes of Mental Health, 1971. RECEIVED:
July 5, 1978;
REVISED:
January 3, 1979, February 21, 1979.
