Judgments and reasoning about parental discipline involving induction and psychological control in China and Canada.

Child Development, May/June 2014, Volume 85, Number 3, Pages 1150–1167

Judgments and Reasoning About Parental Discipline Involving Induction and Psychological Control in China and Canada Charles C. Helwig and Sharon To

Qian Wang

University of Toronto

Chinese University of Hong Kong

Chunqiong Liu

Shaogang Yang

Nanjing Normal University

Guangdong University of Foreign Studies

This study examined judgments and reasoning about four parental discipline practices (induction or reasoning and three practices involving “psychological control”; Barber, 1996; two forms of shaming and love withdrawal) among children (7–14 years of age) from urban and rural China and Canada (N = 288) in response to a moral transgression. Children from all settings critically evaluated love withdrawal and preferred induction. Despite being perceived as more common in China than in Canada, with age, parental discipline based on shaming or love withdrawal was increasingly negatively evaluated and believed to have detrimental effects on children’s feelings of self-worth and psychological well-being. Some cultural variations were found in evaluations of practices, perceptions of psychological harm, and attribution of parental goals.

Parental discipline techniques have long been of interest to socialization researchers ever since developmental psychology became a formal scientific discipline (e.g., Sears, Maccoby, & Levin, 1957). The vast majority of studies in this large research corpus have explored child outcomes associated with parental usage of different forms of discipline, such as reasoning or “induction,” love withdrawal, or physical punishment (Hoffman, 1970). More recently, theorists and researchers have acknowledged children’s active role in socialization and correspondingly called for greater attention to how children themselves construe and evaluate parental discipline practices (e.g., Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Kuczynski, 2003; Smetana, 2011). Despite these calls over the last few decades, direct and in-depth research on children’s judgments and reasoning about discipline practices remains relatively sporadic and sparse, and has been conducted exclusively in Western cultural This research was supported by a grant to Charles C. Helwig from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (410050353), and by research funds from the Department of Psychology at the University of Toronto. The authors would like to thank the children and their parents and the teachers of the participating schools, who gave so generously of their time and efforts in making this research possible. The authors would also like to thank Chang Chen and Hua Lian for assistance with reliability coding. Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Charles C. Helwig, Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 3G3. Electronic mail may be sent to [email protected].

settings (i.e., North America and Europe). The present study sought to expand our understanding of how children construe parental discipline by comparing mainland Chinese (from urban and rural settings) and Canadian children’s judgments and reasoning about several parental discipline practices, including those documented to be commonly used or endorsed by parents in each of these cultural settings. Children’s Evaluations of Parental Discipline Practices in Accordance with Socialization Research Compared to the enormous body of research on child outcomes, there is a relative dearth of research examining children’s evaluations of discipline practices. The existing studies (e.g., Barnett, Quackenbush, & Sinisi, 1996; Horton, Ray, & Cohen, 2001; Paikoff, Collins, & Laursen, 1988; Siegal & Barclay, 1985; Siegal & Cowen, 1984; Sorbring, DeaterDickard, & Palmerus, 2006) have been conducted in North America and Europe, and generally have found that children increasingly prefer parental discipline based on induction or reasoning and become more critical of other forms of discipline, such as

© 2013 The Authors Child Development © 2013 Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/2014/8503-0023 DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12183

Evalutions of Parental Discipline Practices

love withdrawal or power assertion, between the early elementary school years and adolescence. These findings largely parallel the conclusions of moral development and socialization theorizing and research, and have been interpreted to suggest that, with social cognitive development, children’s evaluations become increasingly responsive to the inherent advantages and drawbacks of different forms of parental discipline (e.g., Paikoff et al., 1988; Siegal & Cowen, 1984). For instance, induction involves the use of explanations that emphasize taking others’ perspectives and considering the consequences of one’s actions on others. Induction is theorized to be especially important for moral actions (those involving harm or unfairness to others), because it capitalizes on the child’s capacity for empathy and perspective taking (Grolnick, 2003; Hoffman, 2000). Induction may aide internalization by enabling children to feel that they are the ones who initiate their actions rather than attributing them to external factors like punishment (Grolnick, 2003; Grolnick, Ryan, & Deci, 1997). Consistent with these theoretical propositions, parental use of induction has been found to be associated with increased internalization of moral values (Hoffman & Saltzstein, 1967), heightened empathy and prosocial behavior (e.g., Eisenberg et al., 1992; Krevans & Gibbs, 1996), higher self-esteem and internal locus of control, and lower levels of self-reported delinquency (Peiser & Heaven, 1996). In contrast, discipline involving “psychological control” (Barber, 1996) entails psychologically intrusive forms of parenting that draw upon excessive guilt or shame and fear of loss of love. In the moral development literature, discipline methods such as shaming are believed to heighten attention to external social expectations and others’ criticisms, rather than stimulating true empathy for others (Eisenberg, 2000; Grolnick, 2003; Tangney, 1991). Love withdrawal, like induction, can lead to child compliance and control of unwanted child behavior and even some degree of internalization of parental values (Assor, Roth, & Deci, 2004; Chapman & ZahnWaxler, 1982; Sears et al., 1957). However, fear of loss of love also may draw attention to the consequences of actions for the self, and lead to negative feelings of shame or inadequacy (Barber, 1996; Grolnick, 2003). Consistent with these theoretical propositions, parental use of psychological control such as shaming, conditional regard, and love withdrawal has been associated with a host of negative child outcomes, such as low self-esteem, anxiety or depression, lower levels of empathy or excessive rigidity in the application of social or

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moral rules, and higher levels of self-reported delinquency and resentment toward parents (e.g., Assor et al., 2004; Barber, Stoltz, & Olsen, 2005; Peiser & Heaven, 1996). Nevertheless, there are several limitations of the prior research on children’s evaluations of parental discipline practices that may call into question the kinds of parallels that may be drawn between this research and that on discipline outcomes. First, systematic justification data are absent in all of the studies of children’s judgments of parenting practices, which have tended to rely almost exclusively on responses to simple rating scales without exploring the reasoning behind children’s evaluations. Thus, we know little about children’s comprehension of the processes by which different discipline methods are judged to be effective, and virtually nothing about their understanding of the psychological consequences of different types of discipline, especially those entailing psychological control. A second limitation is that all of the existing studies have been conducted in North America or Europe, usually (though not exclusively; e.g., see Horton et al., 2001) with participants of Caucasian or unspecified ethnic backgrounds. Accordingly, we do not know whether children’s preferences for induction or reasoning indicate true developmental constructions or whether these preferences merely follow children’s perceptions of what may be common or normative in their particular cultural milieu. There is the additional concern that the types of discipline studied (e.g., induction) may reflect largely the preoccupations of Western theorists and researchers, to the neglect of other forms of discipline argued to be more common or accepted in other cultural settings. Parenting Practices Beyond Western Cultural Settings: The Case of China China represents an important case for examining these questions concerning culture, because studies using observations and parental reports have suggested that other forms of discipline besides induction, such as love withdrawal, may be more frequent in China than in North American cultural settings (Wilson, 1974; Wu et al., 2002). In addition, indigenous Chinese forms of discipline and socialization—particularly the explicit use of shame as a moral socialization mechanism—have been identified by several Chinese researchers (e.g., Fung, 1999; Fung & Chen, 2001; Wu et al., 2002). Within the Confucian tradition, “knowing shame” is held as an important moral virtue necessary for

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Helwig, To, Wang, Liu, and Yang

harmonious social life (Fung, 1999). This idea is reflected in the abundant terms for shame and corresponding notions such as “face,” propriety, or honor found in the Chinese language (Li, Wang, & Fischer, 2004). Use of shaming is argued to be more prevalent and to have a different meaning in traditional Chinese socialization than in the West. Although generally viewed as negative in Western accounts of parenting, in China shame is seen as serving an important moral function in teaching children to pay attention to social norms and requirements and to internalize these perspectives to regulate their behavior. According to Fung (1999), Chinese parents distinguish between affective disgrace-shame (the individual emotion) and moral discretion-shame (the social form), using the former as a means to socialize the latter by teaching children to be sensitive to others’ evaluations and criticisms in order to develop an ability for self-criticism and self-reflection. In part, this is done by highlighting the shared or collective shame (often at the family level) attending to social transgressions (Fung, 1999). Moreover, comparing children unfavorably with peers or siblings is also a commonly employed socialization tool by Chinese parents to motivate children to behave properly. In extensive ethnographic research with Taiwanese families, Fung and colleagues (Fung, 1999; Fung & Chen, 2001) documented common use of shared shaming (e.g., “You made your mother lose face”), social comparison shaming (e.g., “Even your baby brother knows what to do”), and love withdrawal (e.g., “The louder you cry, the less I’m going to love you”) by parents in response to child transgressions at home. Similarly, Wu et al. (2002) found that Chinese middle-class parents from Beijing reported using more shaming and love withdrawal than did U.S. parents (although reported use of induction or reasoning did not differ between Chinese and U.S. parents). In an observational study of responses to child transgressions by working-class mothers in Nanjing, China, Wang, Bernas, and Eberhard (2008) found that in addition to the use of induction and straightforward shaming, these mothers often drew social comparisons (e.g., by comparing the transgressing child unfavorably to peers or to familiar, morally exemplary fictional characters). There is also evidence that shaming may have a different meaning in Chinese cultural settings. For example, although in American mother’s selfreports the use of shaming/love withdrawal was negatively related to features of authoritative par-

enting, such as induction, democratic participation (granting children a say in family decisions), and parental warmth, these relations did not hold for Chinese mothers, for whom use of shaming and induction were in fact positively correlated (Wu et al., 2002). At a minimum, then, Chinese parents appear to be using shaming and love withdrawal more extensively than North American parents and often in similar proportions to, rather than in inverse relation to, induction or reasoning. Importantly, the aforementioned studies have focused on parental practices and not on how children themselves construe these practices. Although similar positive and negative child outcomes associated with use of induction and psychological control have been found in China as in North America (e.g., Barber et al., 2005; Chen, Wang, Chen, & Liu, 2002; Nelson, Hart, Yang, Olson, & Jin, 2006; Wang, Pomerantz, & Chen, 2007), there is also evidence that these effects may be moderated by the perceived commonality of the parenting practices or other cultural factors (Gershoff et al., 2010; Wang et al., 2007). A recent line of research, conducted in a variety of cultures including China, has examined the role of perceived commonality of discipline practices (including parental use of shaming, love withdrawal, and corporal punishment) in moderating the associations between the discipline practices and negative child psychological outcomes (e.g., Gershoff et al., 2010). This research has found that when the parenting practices are seen as more culturally normative by children (i.e., frequently used by parents), associated negative child psychological outcomes, although still present, are often mitigated. A recent study conducted in China and the United States explored adolescents’ perceptions of authoritarian parenting, such as parental demands for unquestioning obedience without explanations and sometimes with use of force (Camras, Sun, Li, & Wright, 2012). Authoritarian parenting was evaluated negatively by adolescents in both the United States and China and was associated with negative psychological outcomes such as depression. These effects were moderated by children’s interpretations such that when authoritarian parenting practices were thought to be done with the intention to benefit the child the relations with depression were less strong. However, Camras et al. (2012) did not examine adolescents’ judgments about other practices such as induction or specific forms of psychological control, nor did they explore adolescents’ reasoning. Although ethnic differences in construals of psychological control have begun to be studied among ethnically diverse children in North America


(see Mason, Walker-Barnes, Tu, Simons, & Martinez-Arrue, 2004), it is yet to be understood how factors such as cultural normativity (Gershoff et al., 2010) and construals (Mason et al., 2004) may affect children’s judgments and reasoning about the acceptability of parental discipline entailing psychological control in different cultural contexts. Overview of the Present Study In the present study, we sought to examine Canadian and Chinese children’s (7–14 years of age) evaluations and reasoning about four types of parental discipline carried out in response to a child who engages in a prototypical moral transgression (hits another child on the playground and takes that child’s possession). We used hypothetical vignettes, in line with the previous studies reviewed earlier conducted in North America and Europe (e.g., Siegal & Cowen, 1984; Sorbring et al., 2006), in order to provide systematic control of variables and situations. In contrast to the previous research, however, we also elicited in-depth reasoning and justifications in order to provide more information about children’s understandings of the purposes and consequences of different forms of discipline. In addition to induction and love withdrawal studied in North American and European cultural contexts, we also investigated two types of shaming practices entailing negative social comparisons and “shared shame” emerging from the studies of Chinese parenting (e.g., Fung, 1999; Wang et al., 2008). We focused on childhood through early adolescence, as the research reviewed previously has indicated that most age-related changes in evaluations of the parental discipline practices under study tend to occur over this age span—such as increasing acceptance of induction (e.g., Paikoff et al., 1988) and a more critical perspective on love withdrawal (e.g., Siegal & Barclay, 1985). We expected developmental changes in understanding of the harmful effects of psychological control across childhood and early adolescence, consistent with research on children’s understandings of shame and guilt (Ferguson, Stegge, & Damhuis, 1991). This research has found that younger children (7- to 8-year-olds) are mainly concerned with the external consequences of shame, such as disapproval by authorities or peers. In contrast, older elementary school age children (10- to 11-year-olds) and adolescents often associate shame with self-attributions such as, “I’d feel stupid” or “I do everything wrong.” Older children’s greater ability to perceive the implications of shaming for feelings of self-worth and self-

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esteem may lead them to take a more critical perspective on forms of parental discipline that involve psychological control. In order to provide a multifaceted examination of different dimensions of children’s understandings, we assessed participants’ (a) evaluations of each of the discipline practices under study (as good or bad), (b) attributions of the goals or intentions of mothers in using each practice, (c) judgments of the commonality of each practice within the participant’s respective cultural setting, and (d) judgments about the degree of internalization associated with each practice (i.e., how likely is it to lead to control of the child’s behavior later on, when the mother is not present?). We sought to investigate how children’s understandings along each of these dimensions may vary by discipline practice, age, and cultural setting. Regarding the last dimension, internalization, we were particularly interested in whether shaming practices would be seen as leading to an internalized morality or rather to an external orientation that focuses more on compliance in the face of external sanctions (Hoffman, 2000), and on how these judgments of internalization may vary by cultural setting. Authoritative parenting, with its emphasis on responsiveness to children’s needs and perspectives and the relative rejection of shaming or coercive control, has been found to be more normative in North American cultural contexts than in non-Western cultures, especially among families of European ethnicity and middle-class socioeconomic status (SES; Smetana, 2011). Accordingly, our European-Canadian middle-class subsample was selected to provide a clear contrast with the Chinese subsamples in our study, and was expected to show both high levels of endorsements of induction and a relatively critical perspective on shaming practices. Because support for traditional Chinese discipline practices has been suggested to vary between urban and rural areas in China (Naftali, 2009), we included both an urban middle-class Chinese sample (comparable to our Canadian sample in parental education level and occupation), and a rural Chinese sample from a more remote and traditional (but typical) rural setting. This allowed us to tap children’s reasoning about parental discipline practices in relatively understudied rural areas in China, where Western influences are minimal and traditional Chinese parenting practices are likely to be more intact and commonplace (Naftali, 2009). (We did not include a Canadian rural sample in our study because our focus was on comparing cultural settings within China that may be influenced by traditional Chinese culture to different extents, not on rural environments per se.) Based on prior research

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comparing urban Chinese and Western parenting (e.g., Wu et al., 2002), we expected that urban Chinese children would perceive greater use of shaming and love withdrawal than Canadian children, but that there would be relatively comparable levels of induction perceived by both of these groups. Based on prior research that showed urban Chinese adolescents being more likely than rural Chinese adolescents to endorse children’s autonomy and to believe it is acceptable to openly disagree with parents (Zhang & Fuligni, 2006), we expected that rural Chinese participants, living in a more traditional cultural setting, might perceive even greater use of love withdrawal and shaming than either of the urban groups. Rural Chinese participants might also perceive less use of induction than the urban groups, although these predictions must be seen as speculative in light of the absence of direct research examining these parenting practices among rural Chinese. Based on prior research in Western cultural settings on children’s evaluations of discipline practices, and on cross-cultural research showing similar patterns of associations with child psychological outcomes reviewed earlier, we expected that children in both China and Canada would tend to increasingly prefer parental induction and critically evaluate love withdrawal with age. We also expected that children in both China and Canada would, with increasing age, be more likely to perceive the potential negative features of parental use of shared shame and social comparison shame. In the presence of such similar developmental patterns across settings, there may still be cultural differences. Specifically, we postulated that Canadian children would evaluate shaming and love withdrawal practices more negatively and attribute more negative (abusive or harmful) intentions or goals to mothers who used these practices in comparison to Chinese children. Exploration of children’s explicit comprehension of psychological control, for example, the age at which it is first understood and possible cultural variations in its attribution to parental discipline practices, comprises a key focus of the study.

Method Participants and Samples A total of 288 children drawn equally from three research sites participated, with 32 participants (16 males and 16 females) per age group at each research site: European-Canadians from Toronto, Canada (7- to 8-year-olds, M = 7.86, SD = .48; 10- to

11-year-olds, M = 10.88, SD = .49; and 13- to 14-yearolds, M = 13.83, SD = .45), and mainland Chinese participants from the city of Nanjing (7- to 8-yearolds, M = 8.21, SD = .27; 10- to 11-year-olds, M = 10.42, SD = .45; and 13- to 14-year-olds, M = 13.43, SD = .84), and a rural village in Shandong Province, China (7- to 8-year-olds, M = 8.09, SD = .53; 10- to 11-year-olds, M = 10.70, SD = .44; and 13- to 14-year-olds, M = 13.86, SD = .52). The urban Chinese subsample was drawn from a school serving a largely middle-class population located in the city of Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu Province. Nanjing is a modern city in an economically developed area of the province. Residents of Nanjing, like those in other modern cities in China, overall have a much higher standard of living and level of education than people living in rural areas. Average per capita wage for residents of Nanjing is 36,672 yuan, or US$5,368 (Jiangsu Statistical Yearbook, 2008). Our sample was chosen to represent the emerging Chinese middle-class found in large cities that would afford comparison with a sample from urban Canada of generally similar demographic characteristics. Because of large variations in income levels between China and Canada for similar levels of social class (Mackerras, 2001), we report the SES characteristics of each of our samples by parental occupation and education level. Sixtyfour percent of Chinese urban participants’ parents were employed in professional, sales, managerial, or other technical occupations; 13% were employed in service occupations, trades, or manufacturing; 13% were self-employed (without specifying the nature of the business); and 10% (mostly mothers) were homemakers. Sixty-two percent had completed university or had some postsecondary education, 14% also had postgraduate education, 20% had completed high school only, and 3% had completed grade school only. The rural Chinese subsample was drawn from a school located in a village in central Shandong province. The region from which the sample was drawn was chosen to represent a typical rural and agricultural region in China, and thus substantially less developed economically and more traditional in character than the large urban centers (Shandong Statistical Yearbook, 2008). Average family household income for the district from which the sample was drawn was 9030 Yuan, or approximately US$1,320 (Shandong Statistical Yearbook, 2008). The vast majority (88%) of parents of Chinese rural participants were farmers by occupation, with the remainder working in industry (12%). Thirty-eight percent of parents had a grade-school-only education, 59%


had a junior-high-only education, and 3% had completed senior high school. The Canadian subsample was recruited through a database maintained at the Child Study Center at the University of Toronto that contained names of families residing in the Toronto metropolitan area who had agreed to participate in research. Families in the database were originally recruited from hospitals and day-care centers in the region or through mass mailings. We included only participants of European-Canadian background to provide a clearer cultural contrast with China. Eighty-seven percent of Canadian participants’ parents were employed in professional, sales, managerial, or other technical occupations; 4% were employed in service occupations, trades, or manufacturing; and 10% (mostly mothers) were homemakers. Sixty-two percent had completed university or had some postsecondary education, 28% also had postgraduate education, 9% had completed high school only, and 1% had completed grade school only. Approval to conduct the research was obtained from the Chinese school authorities and the University of Toronto ethics board. For all participants, surrogate consent was obtained from parents or legal guardians and child assent was given. Participants were interviewed in their native language by trained researchers from participating Chinese and Canadian universities. Design and Procedure Participants were given a structured interview of approximately 35 min in length, in which different hypothetical parental responses to a child moral transgression were described. At the beginning of the interview, a transgression is described in which a child (the victim) is playing with a ball or a doll on the school playground after school when another child (the transgressor) comes up and pushes the victim down and takes the victim’s ball/doll. The victim breaks into tears and runs home. This described event constitutes a prototypical moral transgression involving unprovoked harm to others as defined by social domain researchers (Smetana, 2011), and is broadly similar to stimuli used to investigate moral events in other research conducted in North American and Chinese settings (e.g., Yau & Smetana, 2003a). The transgressor’s mother is described as observing the transgression and as taking the transgressor aside and responding in one of four possible ways. In induction, the mother responds by directing the transgressing child’s attention to

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the harmful consequences of the act and encouraging the child to take the perspective of the victim (Hoffman, 2000). In love withdrawal the mother withdraws her love and explicitly states that her ongoing love is contingent on the child’s good behavior (Siegal & Cowen, 1984). The other two parental responses described shaming practices that were derived from research and theorizing about shame as a form of social control in Chinese cultural settings (Fung, 1999; Wang et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2002). In social comparison shame, the transgressor is compared unfavorably to the child’s friend and to other children the child knows, who are described as being better behaved. In shared shame, the mother highlights how the transgressor’s actions reflect on the family’s reputation, stressing how the family will appear in the eyes of others as a result. Both of these shaming practices have been reported to be commonly used in Chinese cultural settings in ethnographic and behavioral studies (Fung, 1999; Wang et al., 2008; Wu et al., 2002). Although psychological control has sometimes alternately been conceptualized as a discipline style or as a practice (see Wu et al., 2002, for a discussion), in order to provide concrete examples for children to evaluate, we focused on specific practices that have features associated with the formal definition of psychological control, such as discipline involving excessive shame or guilt and explicit withdrawal of love contingent on the child’s obedience (Grolnick, 2003), as examined in the socialization research reviewed previously. The wording of each of the four discipline practices was formulated jointly by the four Chinese coauthors (and the single Canadian coauthor), and elaborated with the input of other native speakers (e.g., Chinese research assistants and in pilot testing with children), in order to ensure that the scenarios used in the interview constituted culturally valid styles and forms of parental expression. Standard back-translation techniques (Brislin, 1970) were employed to establish equivalence of the Chinese and English interviews (full versions of the interviews are available from the authors upon request). Gender of story characters in the scenarios was varied, with half the participants in each gender/age group/setting receiving scenarios with male story characters and half with female story characters. Order of presentation of the four discipline practices was systematically counterbalanced in a Latin square design. Following presentation of each of the four discipline practices, participants were asked to evaluate

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each practice (“Is this a good or a bad way for the mother to respond?”) and to give attributions regarding the goals of the parent (“Why do you think the mother responded the way she did?”). Participants were also asked to judge the effectiveness of each form of discipline in producing internalization (“Imagine that 1 week has gone by since the mother responded to the child. How likely do you think it will be for this child to hit other children if the mother is away and cannot see the child?”). Finally, participants were asked to assess the commonality of each discipline practice as used by parents in the participants’ respective country (“How common or likely do you think it is for mothers to respond this way in China/Canada”)? Rating scales adapted from previous research (e.g., Prencipe & Helwig, 2002) were used to provide quantitative assessments for (a) evaluations of each discipline practice, (b) the degree of anticipated internalization associated with each practice, and (c) its perceived commonality. Practice exercises with the two rating scales were conducted prior to testing in order to familiarize participants with their usage. The rating scale used in evaluations of discipline practices consisted of an array of rectangles of varying heights on a 40 cm 9 30 cm card, comprising a 7-point scale ranging from really bad to really good with a neutral midpoint. The rating scale used in assessments of internalization and commonality consisted of a 5-point scale, on a 28 cm 9 22 cm card that ranged from a far left smallest rectangle that represented not at all likely to a far right tallest rectangle that represented extremely likely. Participants used this scale to provide their ratings of the likelihood of the child’s repeated misbehavior (internalization) and the likelihood (commonality) of each discipline method being practiced by parents. Justifications were assessed for judgments (ratings) for evaluations, and for open-ended responses obtained in parental goal attribution questions. All interviews were recorded and transcribed into either Chinese or English for subsequent analyses. Coding and Reliability A coding system for coding qualitative responses was developed simultaneously in English and Chinese from inspection of 50% of the interviews balanced across settings and age groups, by Chinese and Canadian coauthors and a team of bilingual and bicultural research assistants. Each interview was coded in the participant’s native language.

The coding system (see Table 1 for descriptions and examples) included categories used in justifying evaluations of discipline practices and attributing goals to mothers. Categories common to both evaluation justifications and goal attributions included other’s welfare-focus, shame/guilt-focus, and behavioral compliance, which could be given as reasons for evaluations of discipline practices or as goals attributed to mothers who used each form of discipline. Categories used only in justifying evaluations of discipline practices included references to harmful psychological feelings or unfairness, as well as the absence of harmful consequences. Categories used only in attributing goals to mothers included egoistic goals and impulsivity (acting out of control). Multiple justifications or attributions were permitted and weighted according to the total number of justifications or attributions given. Fifty-four interviews (19% of total), evenly distributed over age, gender, and cultural setting, were coded by an independent judge for comparison with the original coding. Intercoder agreement, expressed as Cohen’s kappa, was .76 for evaluation justifications and .86 for mother’s goals.

Results Results are presented separately for quantitative ratings and coded categories by question type (i.e., questions about evaluations, internalization effectiveness, commonality, and perceived parental goals, respectively). Both quantitative ratings and coded categories were analyzed using analyses of variance (ANOVAs) on major variables of interest (i.e., discipline practice, age group, and cultural setting). Coded categories were analyzed in terms of proportionate usage after being subjected to an arcsin transformation to correct for non-normality, which sometimes occurs in proportionate data (Winer, Brown, & Michels, 1991). Only coded categories comprising 10% or more of total responses were analyzed (Yau & Smetana, 2003b). Where multiple ANOVAs were performed, the alpha level was set at .01 to control for Type I errors. All significant interactions were examined with tests of simple effects and, where significant, follow-up pairwise comparisons were conducted with the Bonferroni correction for multiple comparisons. Preliminary analyses revealed no main effects or interactions involving order, the gender of story characters, or gender of participants on all ratings and coded categories; these variables were thus excluded in all subsequent analyses. For the


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Table 1 Coding System for Justifications for Evaluations of Discipline Practices and Attributions of Parental Goals Category

Description

Example

Categories used in both justifying evaluations of discipline practices and attributing parental goals Other’s welfare-focus

Practice is perceived as drawing the child’s attention to the harms caused to the victim by the transgressor’s action or as encouraging the transgressor to take the perspective of the victim

Shame/guilt-focus

Practice is seen as serving to control the child’s behavior through evoking feelings of shame or fear of loss of love, without any indication that these emotions are seen as psychologically harmful to the child Focus on the simple effectiveness of the discipline practice as a means of generating compliance, without mention of any psychological mechanisms or consequences

Behavioral compliance

(Induction) “Because he bullied others, the other child will feel very upset. If the other child bullied Xiaoming, he will feel upset too. Mother wants him to be aware of this feeling, so that he won’t hit other kids again.” (13-year-old rural Chinese girl) (Shared Shame) “Because if she does that, the kid will feel humiliated. She will think about it, because it’s not good and embarrasses the family.” (13-year-old urban Chinese boy) (Social Comparison) “Because her mum has a reason for scolding her, it’s for her not to hit again.” (7-year-old rural Chinese girl)

Categories used only in justifying evaluations of discipline practices Harmful psychological feelings

References to harmful psychological consequences arising from the parental discipline, such as psychological distress or feelings of inferiority or loss of self-esteem

Unfairness

Reference to the unfairness of the discipline practice

Absence of harmful consequences

References to the absence of harmful consequences associated with the discipline practice

(Love Withdrawal) “Because she feels the mother does not love her, she doesn’t care about her at all. She felt she could see her mother from the inside, saw a mother who does not love her … then she’ll weep painfully in a corner.” (10-yearold rural Chinese boy) (Social Comparison) “I don’t think it was good because she compared him to other children unfairly in that situation.” (14-year-old Canadian boy) (Love Withdrawal) “Some mothers will spank her, when spanking her, she will feel very sad inside. [But] If they say things like this to her regularly, then she will forget it quickly.” (11-year-old urban Chinese girl)

Categories used only in attributing parental goals Egoistic

Statements that the mother’s goals are seen as self-serving or egoistic

Impulsivity

Descriptions of the mother as acting out of impulse or lack of self-control

analyses of evaluation justifications and parental goals, decomposition of all significant two-way interactions involving the discipline practice variable comprised examination of the simple effects of age group and setting within each level of the discipline practice variable. (Analyses of the simple effects of discipline practice in higher order interactions are not reported in these analyses in order to

(Shared Shame) “She could be a selfish person; looks are probably the only things that matter to her, more than properly teaching her children what is right or wrong to do.” (14-year-old Canadian girl) (Shared Shame) “Maybe because she was angry at that moment and that is why she said it.” (10-year-old urban Chinese boy)

avoid complicating the presentation because of the large number of comparisons involved, and because the patterns obtained were highly similar across settings and age groups and thus contributed little additional information.) The figures that follow provide means and standard errors for significant comparisons at the level of each significant qualifying interaction. Online supplementary tables provide

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comprehensive means and error terms at the level of each setting and age group, and show general similarities in patterns found across these variables.

Evaluations of Parental Discipline Practices Ratings In order to examine age and setting differences in evaluations of discipline practices, a 3 (age group) 9 3 (setting) 9 4 (discipline practice) ANOVA was conducted on ratings, with discipline practice as a repeated measure. A main effect of discipline practice was found, F(3, 819) = 356.43, p < .001, gp2 = .57, along with significant Age Group 9 Discipline Practice, F(6, 819) = 10.70, p < .001, gp2 = .07, and Setting 9 Discipline Practice, F(6, 819) = 5.38, p < .001, gp2 = .04, interactions. Figure 1a depicts the Age Group 9 Discipline Practice interaction. As expected, the two older age groups (10- to 11-yearolds and 13- to 14-year-olds) evaluated discipline practices entailing psychological control more negatively than the youngest age group (7- to 8-yearolds). Specifically, analyses of the simple effects of age group within each discipline practice indicated

that the two older age groups evaluated all three psychological control discipline practices (social comparison shame, shared shame, and love withdrawal) more negatively than the youngest age group. Conversely, the oldest age group evaluated induction more positively than the youngest age group. Comparisons between discipline practices within each age group indicated that for all three age groups, induction was evaluated more positively than all of the other practices, and love withdrawal was evaluated more negatively than all of the other discipline practices. The 10- to 11-year-olds alone additionally evaluated social comparison shame more positively than shared shame. The Setting 9 Discipline Practice interaction is depicted in Figure 1b. We expected that Chinese participants, especially from the more traditional rural setting, would evaluate discipline practices entailing psychological control less negatively than Canadian participants. Post hoc comparisons of settings within each discipline practice indicated that, consistent with this expectation, Chinese urban and rural participants both rated social comparison shame less negatively than did Canadian participants. As well, Chinese rural participants rated love withdrawal less negatively than both Chinese urban and Canadian participants. Post hoc comparisons of discipline practices within each setting revealed that participants from all three settings rated induction more positively, and love withdrawal more negatively, than all of the other practices. Chinese rural participants alone also evaluated social comparison shame more positively than shared shame. No other significant effects were found. Justifications

Figure 1. Evaluations of parental discipline practices (a) by age group and (b) by setting (1 = really bad, 7 = really good).

Four justification categories reached the analysis criterion of 10% usage: Other’s welfare-focus, harmful psychological feelings, shame/guilt-focus, and behavioral compliance. A 3 (age group) 9 3 (setting) 9 4 (discipline practice) ANOVA, with discipline practice as a repeated measure, was performed on arcsin transformed proportions of usage of each of these four major justification categories. Consistent with our general expectations and complementing the analysis of evaluations reported previously, two justification categories showed agerelated patterns: other’s welfare-focus and harmful psychological feelings (Figure 2a). For these categories, main effects of discipline practice—other’s welfare-focus, F(3, 837) = 305.98, p < .001, gp2 = .52, and harmful psychological feelings, F(3, 837) = 214.18,


p < .001, gp2 = .43—and age group—harmful psychological feelings, F(2, 279) = 29.86, p < .001, gp2 = .18—were qualified by Age Group 9 Discipline Practice interactions—other’s welfare-focus, F(6, 837) = 5.02, p < .01, gp2 = .04, and harmful psychological feelings, F(6, 837) = 6.58, p < .001, gp2 = .04. As expected, other’s welfare-focus justifications were used more in induction when compared to all other discipline practices and tended to increase with age (Figure 2a). Post hoc tests exploring the simple effect of age group within each discipline practice indicated that when reasoning about induction, other’s welfare-focus justifications were used more by the oldest age group when compared to the youngest age group. In contrast, harmful psychological feelings were appealed to more often in the discipline practices involving psychological control (Figure 2a). Main effects of age group, F(2, 279) = 29.86, p < .001, gp2 = .18, and discipline practice, F(3, 837) = 214.18, p < .001, gp2 = .43, were qualified by a significant Age Group 9 Discipline Practice interaction, F(6, 837) = 6.58, p < .001, gp2 = .04. Post hoc tests examining the simple effects of age group for each disci-

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pline practice indicated that for all three discipline practices involving psychological control, the two older age groups referred to harmful psychological feelings more than the youngest age group. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that older participants were more likely to identify induction as leading to empathic reactions in child recipients, and also more likely to see discipline practices involving psychological control as psychologically harmful. In addition to these age-related patterns, usage of these categories also varied by setting (Figure 2b), as indicated by main effects of setting—other’s welfare-focus, F(2, 279) = 9.55, p < .001, gp2 = .06, and harmful psychological feelings, F(2, 279) = 11.40, p < .001, gp2 = .08—which were qualified by significant Setting 9 Discipline Practice interactions— other’s welfare-focus, F(6, 837) = 7.16, p < .001, gp2 = .05, and harmful psychological feelings, F(6, 837) = 3.69, p < .01, gp2 = .03. We expected that harmful psychological feelings would be less likely to be mentioned by the most traditional (rural Chinese) participants when reasoning about discipline practices entailing psychological control. Post

a

b Figure 2. Proportional use of “other’s welfare-focus” and “harmful psychological feelings” as justifications for evaluations of parental discipline practices (a) by age group and (b) by setting (0%–100%).

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hoc comparisons generally supported this expectation. For social comparison shame, rural Chinese participants were less likely to mention harmful psychological feelings than both urban Chinese and Canadian participants. Rural Chinese were also less likely to mention harmful psychological feelings than urban Chinese participants for love withdrawal (but they were not significantly different from Canadian participants). Although we did not have specific predictions regarding cultural or setting differences in usage of the other’s welfare-focus category, post hoc analyses indicated that this category was more likely to be used by Canadian participants than by both urban and rural Chinese participants when reasoning about induction (Figure 2b). Justifications focusing on behavioral compliance were more frequently used by younger participants and by those from the rural Chinese setting, as reflected in significant main effects of age group, F(2, 279) = 19.79, p < .001, gp2 = .12, and setting, F(2, 279) = 8.15, p < .001, gp2 = .06. Specifically, post hoc comparisons showed that the youngest age group (35%, SE = .02) used this category more than each of the two older age groups, and the 10- to 11-year-olds (25%, SE = .02) used it more than the 13- to 14-year-olds (16%, SE = .02). Rural Chinese participants used this category more than Canadian participants (32%, SE = .02, vs. 19%, SE = .02). A main effect of discipline practice, F(3, 837) = 18.16, p < .001, gp2 = .06, also was found. Post hoc comparisons indicated that this category was used more in all other discipline practices when compared to love withdrawal, and more in induction and social comparison than in shared shame (induction, 33%, SE = .03; social comparison shame, 32%, SE = .02; shared shame, 22%, SE = .02; love withdrawal, 13%, SE = .02). For shame/guilt-focus, only a main effect of discipline practice was found, F(3, 837) = 55.01, p < .001, gp2 = .16. Post hoc comparisons indicated that shame/guilt-focus was used more in all other discipline practices than in induction, and more in shared shame and social comparison shame than in love withdrawal (induction, 0%, SE = 0; social comparison shame, 18%, SE = .02; shared shame, 28%, SE = .02; love withdrawal, 7%, SE = .01). It was also used more in shared shame than in social comparison shame.

such that the transgressor would be judged as less likely to commit the same transgression in the future in situations in which the mother is not present. A 3 (age group) 9 3 (setting) 9 4 (discipline practice) ANOVA, with discipline practice as a repeated measure, revealed a single significant effect of discipline practice, F(3, 822) = 14.68, p < .001, gp2 = .05. As expected, post hoc comparisons indicated that induction yielded lower ratings of the likelihood of future transgression (i.e., greater internalization) when compared to all of the other practices (induction, M = 2.09, SE = .07; social comparison shame, M = 2.55, SE = .07; shared shame, M = 2.53, SE = .07; love withdrawal, M = 2.35, SE = .07). In addition, love withdrawal produced significantly lower ratings of the likelihood of future transgression (i.e., greater internalization) when compared to social comparison shame. No other comparisons were significant. Commonality Perceptions Given that we were mainly concerned with determining whether perceptions of commonality of parental discipline practices varied by setting, our analysis here focused on the setting variable and its potential interactions with other variables. It was expected that Chinese participants, especially from the more traditional rural setting, would perceive discipline practices involving psychological control as more commonly used by parents. A 3 (age group) 9 3 (setting) 9 4 (discipline practice) ANOVA, with discipline practice as a repeated measure, on participants’ ratings of the commonality of discipline practices revealed a main effect of discipline practice, F(3, 795) = 42.53, p < .001, gp2 = .14, which was qualified by a Setting 9 Discipline Practice interaction, F(6, 795) = 12.51, p < .001, gp2 = .09. Post hoc examination of the Setting 9 Discipline Practice interaction through comparisons of settings within practices indicated that, as expected, Chinese rural participants perceived social comparison

Internalization Effectiveness It was expected that induction would be perceived as more likely to lead to an internalized moral orientation than the other discipline practices,

Figure 3. Perceived commonality of parental discipline practices by setting (1 = not at all likely, 5 = extremely likely).


shame, shared shame, and love withdrawal as more commonly used by mothers than did Canadian participants (see Figure 3). In addition, Chinese urban participants perceived love withdrawal and social comparison shame as more commonly used than did Canadian participants. Induction, however, did not show a clear cultural pattern, with both Canadian and Chinese rural participants perceiving greater use of induction than did Chinese urban participants. Comparisons between discipline practices within each setting revealed that Canadian participants perceived greater use of induction, and less use of love withdrawal, when compared to all other practices. In contrast, both Chinese urban and Chinese rural participants perceived greater use of both induction and social comparison shame than love withdrawal. No other comparisons were significant.

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Two categories reached the analysis criterion of 10% usage: behavioral compliance goals and shame/guilt-focus. A 3 (age group) 9 3 (setting) 9 4 (discipline practice) ANOVA, with discipline practice as a repeated measure, was performed on arcsin transformed proportions of usage of each of these categories. For behavioral compliance, a main effect of discipline practice was found, F(3, 837) = 5.85, p < .001, gp2 = .02. Post hoc tests indicated that participants attributed goals of behavioral compliance to mothers more frequently in all other discipline practices when compared to shared shame (induction, 52%, SE = .03; social comparison shame, 53%, SE = .03; shared shame, 42%, SE = .03; love withdrawal, 55%, SE = .03). In addition, main effects of age group, F(2, 279) = 29.26, p < .001, gp2 = .17, and setting, F(2, 279) = 25.95, p < .001, gp2 = .16, were qualified by an Age Group 9 Setting interaction, F(4, 279) = 3.52, p < .01, gp2 = .05. In general, behavioral compliance goals

were more likely to be perceived by Chinese than Canadian participants (Figure 4). Examination of the simple effects of setting indicated that for the youngest age group, rural Chinese participants attributed behavioral compliance goals to mothers more than both urban Chinese and Canadian participants, but for the two older age groups, both Chinese groups (rural and urban) attributed these goals to mothers more than did Canadian participants. Examination of the simple effects of age group indicated that maternal goals of behavioral compliance were attributed more by the youngest age group than the two older age groups for both rural Chinese and Canadian participants, but there were no age differences in behavioral compliance attributions among urban Chinese participants (Figure 4). For shame/guilt-focus, a main effect of discipline practice was found, F(3, 837) = 42.44, p < .001, gp2 = .13. Post hoc tests indicated that participants attributed mother’s goals of imparting shame/guilt more often in all other discipline practices when compared to induction (induction, 1%, SE = .01; social comparison shame, 32%, SE = .03; shared shame, 31%, SE = .03; love withdrawal, 21%, SE = .02). They also attributed mothers’ goals of imparting shame/guilt more often in both social comparison and shared shame when compared to love withdrawal. In addition, a main effect of age group, F(2, 279) = 21.23, p < .001, gp2 = .13, was qualified by an Age Group 9 Discipline Practice interaction, F(6, 837) = 4.70, p < .001, gp2 = .03. Post hoc tests indicated that participants increasingly, with age, identified imparting shame/guilt as a goal of mothers in shaming and love withdrawal scenarios (Figure 5). Specifically, for social comparison shame, the two older age groups used the category of shame/guilt-focus more frequently when compared to the youngest age group; for shared shame, the oldest age group used it more frequently than

Figure 4. Proportional use of “behavioral compliance” as a perceived parental goal by age group and setting (0%–100%).

Figure 5. Proportional use of “shame/guilt-focus” as a perceived parental goal by parental discipline practice and age group (0%–100%).

Perceived Parental Goals

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did the youngest age group, and for love withdrawal, the oldest age group used it more than the two younger age groups. Finally, a main effect of setting, F(2, 279) = 13.32, p < .001, gp2 = .09, was due to more frequent references to imparting shame/guilt as a goal of mothers by the urban Chinese (23%, SE = .02) and Canadian (27%, SE = .02) participants when compared to the rural Chinese (13%, SE = .02) participants.

Discussion This study is the first to incorporate an in-depth investigation of children’s judgments and reasoning about parental discipline practices involving induction and psychological control in response to a moral transgression, exploring these issues in a cultural comparison in three settings (urban and rural China and Canada). The findings revealed both developmental and cultural commonalities and differences in evaluations and reasoning about parental discipline practices. Each of these aspects of the findings and their implications will be discussed in turn. Commonalities Across Settings and Developmental Patterns The findings revealed that children from diverse cultural settings tended to prefer discipline based on reasoning or induction to that involving shaming or love withdrawal. Forms of parental discipline entailing psychological control were critically evaluated by children across all three settings, despite the fact that they were perceived as commonly used by parents in the Chinese cultural settings. In their reasoning, children from all three settings appealed to the harmful psychological consequences associated with shaming and love withdrawal as reasons why these forms of discipline were judged less positively than induction. These harmful consequences entailed negative emotional reactions as well as effects on children’s self-esteem. In contrast, induction was evaluated highly positively because it was believed to help stimulate empathy by fostering a focus on the emotions and perspectives of victims. Developmental patterns were found in both evaluations of practices and in their attendant justifications; older children were more likely to evaluate induction positively and to focus in their reasoning on promoting an awareness of others’ welfare. Correspondingly, older children were more likely to critically evaluate parental

shaming and love withdrawal and to perceive negative psychological consequences associated with these practices. Perhaps most striking is the critical orientation taken by the Chinese children toward parental shaming and love withdrawal, identified by studies of parenting (Fung, 1999; Wu et al., 2002) as commonly used in Chinese settings and corroborated by children’s own perceptions in the present study. Despite being perceived as commonly used by parents, Chinese children in our study frequently viewed shaming and love withdrawal as psychologically harmful, evaluating these practices much less positively than induction and believing them to be less effective in producing an internalized control over behavior. An awareness of how parental preoccupation with group honor and shame could be psychologically harmful to children is illustrated by the following response of an urban Chinese 13-year-old girl to the shared shame scenario: [What the mother said is bad] because her first concern was how others will look at her, not the child … I don’t think she did the right thing to consider her own image first. Because she uses the family’s name, honor, to educate the young kid, making him feel a great burden psychologically. She should really re-think how she educates the kid—not putting all that family honor as a burden on the child’s shoulders. Thus, Chinese children’s reasoning about shaming practices could not simply be characterized in terms of socialization into a cultural orientation in which parental shaming of children is viewed as desirable or acceptable (Fung, 1999). Instead, the development of Chinese children’s judgments and reasoning (like that of their Canadian counterparts) appeared to involve increasing reflection on the intrinsic negative psychological consequences associated with discipline practices involving psychological control, and the desirability of using more autonomy-supportive forms of discipline such as induction (Grolnick, 2003; Hoffman, 2000). These findings highlight the importance of studying children’s own interpretations of parental discipline methods, to complement insights gleaned from parental ethnotheories and descriptive studies of actual parenting practices. A future line of research might fruitfully explore these potential divergences between children’s and parents’ views more directly, perhaps in the context of reasoning about actual child–parent interactions. Studies of


child–parent interactions in North America and China have revealed similar tensions and discrepancies in how children and parents differentially interpret and evaluate various family rules and practices (e.g., Smetana, 1989; Yau & Smetana, 2003b), and we would not be surprised to find similar variations between Chinese parents and children in their construals of parental discipline. As noted, children’s reasoning about the discipline practices did not simply follow what was perceived as common (especially for the Chinese participants), nor did evaluations of discipline practices simply follow what was perceived as effective. Among participants from all three settings, love withdrawal was seen as second only to induction at producing an internalized morality (and more effective in this regard than social comparison shame), yet it was evaluated least positively of all the methods because of its psychologically harmful effects. Interestingly, children’s judgments and reasoning appears to parallel the socialization research findings that love withdrawal may be effective in producing internalization and yet still may produce negative psychological effects (e.g., Assor et al., 2004; Chapman & Zahn-Waxler, 1982). These distinctions reveal that children themselves were evaluating the merits and drawbacks of the discipline methods and making nuanced discriminations that took into account several different dimensions of socialization (e.g., effectiveness and harmfulness). Despite these distinctions, younger children were found to be more oriented than older children toward behavioral compliance in their reasoning about parental discipline. In part, this may reflect their relative failure to see the harmful psychological consequences associated with psychological control and shaming. However, the unqualified main effect of age found in usage of the behavioral compliance justification category when evaluating discipline practices indicates that younger children’s thinking was more oriented toward compliance across the different types of discipline, that is, even when reasoning about induction. Moreover, when reasoning about mothers’ goals in the discipline setting, younger children (7- to 8-year-olds) were more likely overall to focus on simple compliance goals (i.e., getting the child to behave), whereas older children (from 10 to 11 years of age and older) tended to see the imparting of shame or guilt as an explicit goal of mothers when they used discipline based on psychological control, which was also seen as harmful. Taken together, our findings suggest that children in diverse cultural settings develop reliable understandings of psychological

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control and its attendant negative consequences by around 10–11 years of age and use these understandings to critically evaluate parental discipline entailing shaming and love withdrawal. Cultural Differences Cultural differences were found in both perceptions of commonality and in evaluations of discipline practices. We expected that Chinese participants would tend to perceive discipline involving shaming and love withdrawal as more common and would evaluate these practices less negatively than would Canadian participants, in accordance with the moderating role of normativity on the negative effects of parental discipline practices identified in other research (Gershoff et al., 2010). These expectations were largely borne out in our findings. For example, both urban and rural Chinese participants evaluated social comparison shame less negatively than did Canadian participants. As well, participants from the traditional rural setting evaluated love withdrawal less negatively than did both urban Chinese and Canadian participants. In several significant comparisons with the other groups, Chinese participants from the rural setting were found to attribute harmful psychological consequences less frequently to practices such as social comparison shame or love withdrawal. In general, in settings where shaming or love withdrawal was seen as more normative or commonly used by parents, it tended to be evaluated less negatively and was less often explicitly associated with psychological harm. These findings extend that of other work (Gershoff et al., 2010) on the moderating role of children’s perceptions of normativity of parental discipline practices, by showing that children’s perceptions of normativity may moderate not only the magnitude of child psychological consequences actually experienced but also children’s own judgments and reasoning about the acceptability of different types of discipline. There was also some evidence that Chinese participants viewed the goals of mothers differently than European-Canadian participants. Chinese participants (both rural and urban) were more likely to attribute simple compliance goals to mothers than were Canadian participants, that is, to perceive the mother as motivated to teach the child to behave well. In contrast, goals of imparting shame or guilt as a means of controlling the child’s behavior were more likely to be attributed to mothers by urban participants in both China and Canada than by

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rural Chinese participants. The focus on compliance goals was especially high among the younger rural Chinese children (85%), declining to around 60% in the oldest rural age group. Compliance goals remained high among the urban Chinese children (approximately 50%, with no age differences), while in contrast, Canadian children’s focus on compliance steadily declined with age from a high of 60% to a low of only 20%. The continuing emphasis on compliance found among Chinese participants of various ages and from both urban and rural settings probably reflects the strong cultural orientation of obedience and respect for authority held within Chinese culture (Zhang & Fuligni, 2006). Thus, Chinese participants were more likely to situate or contextualize parental socialization goals within that of broader cultural values such as obedience (despite often taking a critical perspective on the practices themselves). One surprising finding pertained to perceptions of commonality of parental use of induction. Although rural Chinese participants, as expected, perceived greater use of discipline involving shaming and love withdrawal than those from other settings, they also perceived greater use of induction than urban Chinese participants (and similar levels of use of induction as the Canadian participants). A full explanation of this finding must await further research, since we know very little about the actual relative usage of induction and psychological control by parents in rural Chinese settings. However, one possible implication of this finding is that induction and psychological control may not represent points along the continuum from authoritative to authoritarian parenting as often construed, but that these practices may be combined in unique ways in different cultural settings, much as authoritarian parenting and warmth have been found to be combined in Asian parenting but largely orthogonal in Western parenting contexts (see Grolnick, 2003, p. 76, for a discussion). Importantly, our findings indicate that induction should not be seen as a “Western” form of parenting as it is perceived by children in traditional Chinese settings as both commonly used and desirable, for similar reasons as argued by Western and Chinese theorists and researchers (e.g., Chen et al., 2002; Hoffman, 2000). Limitations and Future Directions Although this study has revealed new understandings of how children perceive different types of parental discipline in response to a moral trans-

gression, there are many areas open for further investigation. This study investigated understandings of four common types of discipline practices reflected in the socialization literature and studied in prior research, and although the selection of these practices was driven by important gaps in the literature, this investigation needs to be expanded to encompass many other types of discipline and moral socialization strategies used by parents (see Grusec & Goodnow, 1994). We also need to better understand how reasoning about parental shaming may be influenced by the type of event to which parents are responding. In order to provide in-depth assessments of children’s reasoning about parenting practices and to include a variety of different dimensions of judgments in a single cross-cultural study, we restricted our example of a child transgression to a prototypical moral event (hitting and taking another child’s possession). Although this is an important and indeed iconic example of an event in which parents intervene (Hoffman, 2000), other types of transgressions need to be studied to gain a more comprehensive understanding of whether and when parental use of shaming may be considered legitimate. In the present study we found that children rejected shaming in response to moral transgressions—in part for the same reasons that many moral developmental and socialization theorists have—that is, that it serves to direct attention away from the harm associated with these kinds of transgressions and toward a preoccupation with the opinions of others or the transgressor’s own distress (Eisenberg, 2000; Tangney, 1991). But what about social conventional transgressions (Smetana, 2011) that do not involve harm to others but that may directly implicate issues of status, honor, or one’s position in a social hierarchy, issues that may be closely related to shame and the necessity of following social expectations? Understanding what role shaming may be seen to play as a parental discipline strategy in these types of situations, and how these judgments may be influenced by culture, remains an open area of investigation. Another limitation of the present study is that although we were able to match our Canadian and Chinese urban samples on SES (education and occupation level), we did not directly explore the role of SES in judgments about parental discipline practices. Our focus was on cross-culture comparisons between Canada and China and within-culture comparisons between the more modern urban setting and the more traditional rural setting in China. Because Chinese rural settings are by their nature


of lower SES, we could not ferret out how much of these differences are due to the traditional setting and how much may be due to social class. Future research on reasoning about psychological control needs to examine the role of SES more directly, for example, through comparisons of urban samples of varying social class. Conclusions In sum, our findings show that children’s reasoning about parental discipline becomes more sophisticated and discriminative throughout childhood and early adolescence. Children in highly diverse cultural settings (i.e., Canada and urban and rural China) come to understand and perceive the advantages of parental discipline based on reasoning or induction, and they develop explicit understandings of psychological control which they use to critically evaluate parental use of shaming and love withdrawal, with some variations due to cultural setting and perceived normativity. These understandings and judgments are likely driven by children’s own experiences and their reflections on the inherent consequences of different types of discipline, as the abundant parallels between children’s own developing understandings and the findings of a large body of socialization research appear to suggest. Our findings point to the importance of understanding how children themselves construe and interpret parental discipline and the need to conceptualize socialization as a reciprocal process to which children themselves contribute (e.g., Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Kucyznski, 2003; Smetana, 2011). When taken together with the findings from straightforward socialization research, studies such as this one may help to advance our understanding of how various forms of parental socialization may be similarly or differently related to positive and negative child outcomes across diverse cultural settings. References Assor, A., Roth, G., & Deci, E. L. (2004). The emotional costs of parents’ conditional regard: A self-determination theory analysis. Journal of Personality, 72, 47–88. doi:10.1111/j.0022-3506.2004.00256.x Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct. Child Development, 67, 3296–3319. doi:10.1111/j.1467-8624.1996.tb01915.x Barber, B. K., Stoltz, H. E., & Olsen, J. A. (2005). Parental support, psychological control, and behavioral control: Assessing relevance across time, culture, and method. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Develop-

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Evalutions of Parental Discipline Practices Zhang, W., & Fuligni, A. J. (2006). Authority, autonomy, and family relationships among adolescents in urban and rural China. Journal of Research on Adolescence, 16, 527–537. doi:10.1111/j.1532-7795.2006.00506.x

Supporting Information Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article at the publisher’s website: Table S1. Mean Ratings and (SDs) for Evaluations, Internalization, and Commonality by Parental Discipline Method, Age Group, and Setting.

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Table S2. Frequencies in Proportions of Justifications for Evaluations by Parental Discipline Method, Age Group, and Setting. Table S3. Frequencies in Proportions of Perceived Parental (Mother) Goals by Parental Discipline Method and Age Group. Table S4. Frequencies in Proportions of Perceived Parental (Mother) Goals by Setting and Age Group for the Justification Category Behavioral Compliance.

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