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Journal of Personality and Social Psychology

1967, Vol. S, No. 1, 45-57

PARENT DISCIPLINE AND THE CHILD'S MORAL


DEVELOPMENT 1
MARTIN L. HOFFMAN HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN
University of Michigan Massachusetts Institute of Technology

7th-grade children were assessed on several dimensions of moral development


by means of paper-and-pencil tests and ratings by parents, teachers, and
peers. Extreme groups were formed along each of these dimensions, and they
were compared on measures of parental discipline based on reports by the
children themselves and by each of the parents. Discipline techniques were
coded into 3 categories: power assertion, in which the parent capitalizes on his
power and authority over the child; love withdrawal, i.e., direct but non-
physical expressions of anger, disapproval, etc.; and induction, consisting of
the parent's focusing on the consequences of the child's action for others.
Data from middle- and lower-class boys and girls were analyzed separately.
IQ was controlled for each analysis. With considerablebut not complete
consistency, advanced development along the various moral dimensions was
associated with infrequent use of power assertion and frequent use of induction
among the middle-class sample. Love withdrawal, on the other hand, related
infrequently to moral development.

Recent years have seen the accumulation of The importance of this factor may lie in the
a body of findings relating moral develop- model it provides the child for channeling his
ment, especially internalization of moral val- own aggression. Where the parent himself
ues and the capacity for guilt, to parental expresses his anger openly, he thereby en-
practices. In a recent review of this research courages the child to express his anger openly;
(Hoffman, 1963a) the following propositions where the parent controls his anger, he dis-
received support: (a) A moral orientation courages the child from openly expressing
based on the fear of external detection and anger and therefore may promote a turning
punishment is associated with the relatively of the anger inward which according to psy-
frequent use of discipline techniques involv- choanalytic theory is the process by which
ing physical punishment and material depriva- the guilt capacity is developed.
tion, here called power assertive discipline; Another explanation of the difference be-
(b) a moral orientation characterized by in- tween power assertive and nonpower assertive
dependence of external sanctions and high techniques is in terms of the duration of the
guilt is associated with relatively frequent use punishment; that is, whereas nonpower as-
of nonpower assertive disciplinesometimes sertive discipline may last a long time, the
called psychological, indirect, or love-oriented application of force usually dissipates the
discipline. parent's anger and thus may relieve the child
Several explanations of these findings have of his anxiety or guilt rather quickly. A third
been advanced, each focusing on a different possibility, suggested by Sears, Maccoby, and
aspect of the parent's discipline. Thus, Allin- Levin (1957), is that punishing the child by
smith and Greening (1955) suggest that the withholding love, which is frequently involved
significant variable may be the difference in in nonpower assertive discipline, has the effect
the model presented by the parent during the of intensifying the child's efforts to identify
disciplinary encounter (i.e., parent openly with the parent in order to assure himself of
expresses anger versus parent controls anger). the parent's love.
1
This study was supported by Public Health A still different formulation has recently
Service Research Grant M-02333 from the National been suggested by Hill (1960). According to
Institute of Mental Health. It was carried out while this view, the crucial underlying factor is the
both authors were at the Merrill-Palmer Institute.
The authors wish to thank Lois W. Hoffman for timing of the punishment. Love-withdrawal
her many helpful comments and suggestions. punishment is believed more often to termi-
45
46 MARTIN L. HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

nate when the child engages in a corrective sertive techniques as involving a loss of love.
act (e.g., confession, reparation, overt admis- However, as indicated above, the love-with-
sion of guilt, etc.), whereas physical punish- drawing component of the induction tech-
ment is more likely to occur and terminate at niques is more subdued, and in addition they
the time of the deviant act and prior to any provide him with the knowledge that his
corrective act. actions have caused pain to others. By doing
Finally, the important variable may be this the technique capitalizes on the child's
the information often communicated by non- capacity for empathy. In our view (see Hoff-
power assertive techniques regarding the im- man, 1963b; Hoffman, in press; Hoffman &
plications of the child's deviant behavior. For Saltzstein, 1960) it is this capacity for em-
example, Aronfreed's (1961) view is that such pathy which provides a powerful emotional
information can provide the cognitive and be- and cognitive support for development of
havioral resources necessary for the child to moral controls and which has been overlooked
examine his actions independently and accept in other psychological theories of moral de-
responsibility for them. velopment. For this reason it was expected
Though varied, all but the last of these that induction, and not love withdrawal,
explanations assume the key ingredient for would relate most strongly to the varioiis in-
nonpower assertive discipline to be its puni- dexes of moral development.
tivemore specifically, its love-withdrawing Affection has often been supposed to be a
quality. This hypothesis stems from psy- necessary condition for moral development.
choanalytic and learning theories that empha- Measures of the parent's affection were there-
size anxiety over loss of love as the necessary fore included for completeness. We expected,
motivational basis for moral development. following the pattern of the previous research,
In examining instances of nonpower as- that power assertion would relate negatively,
sertive discipline it became apparent that the and affection positively, to the moral indexes.
amount of love withdrawal, real or threatened,
varied considerably. In some cases, the love- METHOD
withdrawal aspect of the discipline seemed Sample
to predominate. In others it seemed totally
absent, and in still others it seemed to be a The children studied were all seventh graders in
the Detroit metropolitan area. The test battery was
minor part of a technique primarily focused administered to groups of children in the schools
on the harmful consequences of the child's during three sessions spaced about a week apart.
behavior for others. This suggested that the Sometimes an individual class was tested in the
effectiveness of these techniques might lie in homeroom, and sometimes several groups were
their empathy-arousing capacity rather than, tested together in the gymnasium or auditorium.
Data bearing on the various dimensions of moral
or in addition to, their love-withdrawing development were obtained from over 800 children
property. In the present study we accordingly broadly representative of the population in the area.
made the distinction between two kinds of Because of the apprehension of some of the school
nonpower assertive discipline. One, called in- officials, however, we were unable to obtain reports
of parental discipline from about a fourth of these
duction, refers to techniques in which the children, the loss being greater among the lower-
parent points out the painful consequences of class sample. In addition, children identified as be-
the child's act for the parent or for others. In havior problems and those from nonintact families
the second, called love withdrawal, the parent were screened from the sample. Further shrinkage
simply gives direct but nonphysical expres- due to absences, incomplete background informa-
tion, and unintelligible or incomplete responses re-
sion to his anger or disapproval of the child sulted in a final sample of 444 children. Included
for engaging in the behavior. In a sense by were 146 middle-class boys, 124 middle-class girls,
these latter techniques the parent points out 91 lower-class boys, and 83 lower-class girls.
the painful psychological consequences of the Subsequently, interviews were conducted with a
act for the child himself, that is, the with- subsample consisting of 129 middle-class mothers
(66 boys and 63 girls) and 75 middle-class fathers
drawal of love by the parent. (37 boys and 38 girls). No interviews were con-
It is probable, of course, that the child ex- ducted with parents of the children from the lower
periences both these types of nonpower as- class.
CHILD'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT 47

Child Morality Indexes of a conscious self-initiated and self-critical reac-


tion. Given evidence for such a reaction, the in-
Several different moral indexes were usedeach tensity of guilt was rated on a scale ranging from
tapping a different aspect of conscience.2 The two 1 to 6. At the extreme high end of the scale were
major indexes pertain to the degree to which the stories involving personality change in the hero, sui-
child's moral orientation is internalized. These are cide, etc. In coding the stories the attempt was made
(a) the intensity of guilt experienced following his to ignore differences in sheer style of writing and to
own transgressions, and (b) the use of moral judg- infer the feeling of the subject as he completed the
ments about others which are based on internal story.
rather than external considerations. The other in- A departure from the usual practice was to assign
dexes pertain to whether the child confesses and two guilt scores to each storyone for the maximum
accepts responsibility for his misdeeds and the ex- guilt experienced by the hero, usually occurring
tent to which he shows consideration for others. early in the story, and the other for terminal guilt.
Identification, though not a direct moral index, was In relating discipline to this and other facets of
also included because of its relationship to moral morality extreme groups were chosen. In choosing
development, as hypothesized by psychoanalytic the high- and low-guilt groups, attention was paid
theory and by recent researchers (e.g., Sears et al., to both scores. That is, the high-guilt group in-
1951). cluded those who sustained a high level of guilt
Guilt. Two semiprojective story-completion items throughout the stories. The low-guilt group included
were used to assess the intensity of the child's guilt children who manifested little or no guilt through-
reaction to transgression. The technique presents the out the stories. Children who initially manifested
child with a story beginning which focuses on a intense guilt which was dissipated through confes-
basically sympathetic child of the same sex and age sion, reparation, defenses, etc., were not included in
who has committed a transgression. The subject's the guilt analysis.
instructions are to complete the story and tell what
Internalized moral judgments. The moral judg-
the protagonist thinks and feels and "what hap-
ment items consisted of several hypothetical trans-
pens afterwards." The assumption made is that the
gressions which the children were asked to judge.
child identifies with the protagonist and therefore
These situations were of the general type used by
reveals his own internal reactions (although not
Piaget, including moral judgments about persons
necessarily his overt reactions) through his com- committing various crimes, for example, stealing;
pletion of the story. choosing which of two crimes was worse, for ex-
The first story used here was concerned with a ample, one involving simple theft and the other a
child who through negligence contributed to the
breach of trust; and judgments of crimes with ex-
death of a younger child. The story beginning was tenuating circumstances, for example, a man who
constructed so as to provide several other characters
steals in order to procure a drug which he cannot
on whom to transfer blame. The second story was afford and which is needed to save his wife's life. 3
about a child who cheats in a swimming race and In each case the child's response was coded as ex-
wins. In both stories detection was made to appear
ternal (e.g., "you can get put in jail for that"), in-
unlikely. In rating the intensity of the guilt from ternal (e.g., "that's not right, the man trusted you"),
the subject's completion of the story, care was
or indeterminate. The individual internal scores were
taken to assess first that the subject identified with then summed for all items, and the sum constituted
the central character. If such identification was the child's internalization score on moral judgments.
dubious, the story was not coded for guilt, nor
were stories involving only external detection or Overt reactions to transgression. Two measures
concern with detection coded for guilt. All other were used to assess the child's overt reactions to
stories were coded for guilt. For a story to receive a transgression. The first was the teacher's report of
guilt score higher than zero there had to be evidence how the child typically reacts when "caught doing
something wrong." The categories included: "denies
2
These dimensions were used because they clearly he did it"; "looks for someone else to blame";
bear on morality and because they represent dif- "makes excuses"; "cries, looks sad, seems to feel
ferent levels (affective, cognitive, overt) and direc- bad"; "accepts responsibility for what he has done";
tions for behavior (proscriptions, prescriptions). and "where possible tries on own initiative to rectify
Each dimension has its advantages and disadvan- situation."
tages, and since a strong case for including one and The second measure was a questionnaire item
not the others could not be made we included asked of the child's mother, similar to the item used
them all. In doing this our intention was not to by Sears et al. (19S7). The question was: "when
treat them as indexes of a single underlying "moral . . . . has done something that (he) (she)
development." Doing this would seem premature, knows you would not approve of, and you haven't
since, although the different aspects of morality found out about it yet, how often does (he) (she)
presumably increase with age (empirical data on age come and tell you about it without your asking?"
progression are available only for moral judgment), The mother was asked to check one of five alterna-
they very likely begin to developand reach full 3
developmentat different ages and progress at dif- This item was an adaptation of one used by
ferent rates. Kohlberg (1963).
48 MARTIN L. HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

lives, the extremes of which were "all the time" and Assessment of parental discipline was made in the
"never." following way. Each respondent (the child or parent)
Neither of these measures is ideal. The first has was asked to imagine four concrete situations: one
the disadvantage of asking for the child's reaction in in which the child delayed complying with a pa-
the presence of an authority figure after detection. rental request to do something, a second in which
The second has the defect of being based on a report the child was careless and destroyed something of
by the parent, who is the same person providing value, a third in which he talked back to the
much of the discipline data and who is more likely parent, a fourth situation in which he had not done
to be influenced by "social desirability" than the well in school. Following each situation was a list
teacher. Yet, the parent may well be the only per- of from 10 to 14 practices. The respondent was asked
son with enough background information and close to look over the list, then rate the absolute fre-
contact with the child to make a knowledgeable quency of each and finally to indicate the first, sec-
estimate of how he acts before detection. ond, and third practice most frequently used, 4 These
Consideration jor other children. This measure three choices were weighted, and the scores summed
was obtained from sociometric ratings by the chil- across the four situations. The practices listed repre-
dren in the same classroom. Each child made three sented our three main categories. The first category,
nominations for the child first, second, and third power assertion, included physical punishment, dep-
most "likely to care about the other children's feel- rivation of material objects or privileges, the direct
ings" and "to defend a child being made fun of by application of force, or threat of any of these. The
the group." The usual weights were used and the term "power assertion" is used to highlight the fact
two scores summed. that in using these techniques the parent seeks to
Identification. Our major measure of identification control the child by capitalizing on his physical
was based on the child's responses to several items power or control over material resources (Hoffman,
bearing on his orientation toward the parent: (a) 1960). The second category, love withdrawal, in-
admiration: "Which person do you admire or look cluded techniques whereby the parent more or less
up to the most?"; (6) desire to emulate: "Which openly withdraws love by ignoring the child, turn-
person do you want to be like when you grow up?"; ing his back on the child, refusing to speak to him,
(c) perceived similarity: "Which person do you take explicitly stating that he dislikes the child, or iso-
after mostly?" Responses which mention the parent lating him. The third category, induction regarding
were coded as parent-identification responses and parents, includes appeals to the child's guilt poten-
summed to obtain an overall identification score. It tial by referring to the consequences of the child's
should be noted that this measure is designed to action for the parent. Included are such specifics as
assess the child's conscious identification with the telling the child that his action has hurt the parent,
parents and not necessarily the unconscious identifi- that an object he damaged was valued by the par-
cation of which Freud wrote. ent, that the parent is disappointed, etc.
Coding procedure. The story completion and moral These lists were administered to each parent
judgment coding were done by one of the authors twice, once with instructions to select the techniques
(HDS). To avoid contamination, the procedure which he used at present, and next to select those
was to go through all 444 records and code one item he remembers using when the child was about 5
at a time. Especially difficult responses were coded years old. Reports of past discipline were not asked
independently by both authors, and discrepancies of the children because it was unlikely that they
were resolved in conference. could remember parent practices used several years
Before the final coding was begun, coding relia- before.
bilities of 82% for maximum guilt, 73% for terminal The above measure of induction is a limited one
guilt, and 91% for internal moral judgment were in that it only included instances where the parent
attained by the authors. These figures represent the made references to the consequences of a transgres-
percentage of agreement in giving high (top sion for the parent himself. To supplement this, an
quartile), low (bottom quartile), and middle rat- additional measure of induction was constructed.
ings. There were no extreme disagreements, that is, This dealt with the parent's reaction to two situa-
no instances in which a child received a high rating tions in which the child's transgression had harmful
by one judge and a low rating by the other. consequences for another child, In the first situation
the child, aged 5, aggresses against another child and
destroys something the other child has built, caus-
Measures of Parent Practices ing the other child to cry. In the second situation
Two reports of each parent's typical disciplinary the parent sees his child aged 6-10 making fun of
practices were availableone from the children who another child. The parent was asked what he would
reported the disciplinary practices of both parents, have done or said in such a situation, and his reac-
another from the mothers and fathers who each tion was coded along a 3-point scale for the degree
reported their own typical disciplinary practices. to which he (the parent) makes reference to and
The reports from the children were collected during
4
the third testing session in the schools. The parents Ratings of the absolute frequency were included
were interviewed separately by trained female inter- primarily to make sure the respondent thought about
viewers. The interview typically lasted about an hour. all the items in the list before ranking them.
CHILD'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT

shows concern for the other child's feelings. The development indexand then to compare these
scores were summed to arrive at a measure of the groups on the child-rearing-practice scores obtained
parent's use of induction regarding peers. in the child reports and (in the case of the middle
Assessment of the parent's affection for the child class only) the parent interviews. In forming the
was also obtained from the child and from the comparison groups, the cutoff points were made as
parent. The child was given a list of 19 behaviors close as possible to the upper and lower quartile
indicating affection, approval, criticism, advice giv- points within each subsample.
ing, and participation in child-centered activities and The test of significance used throughout was the
asked to indicate along a 4-point scale how often median test.
the parent engaged in such behaviors. The affection Control on IQ. An important feature of this study,
score was a simple weighted sum for the affection which was not true in the previous moral develop-
and approval items. ment research, was the control on intellectual ability
A slightly different measure was used to obtain which was instituted. Scores on either the California
affection data from the parents. They were given a Test of Mental Maturity or the Iowa Tests of Basic
list of eight behaviors indicating affection, approval, Skills were foundwith social class controlledto
qualified approval, and material reward and asked relate positively to internalized moral judgments and
to indicate along a 4-point scale how often they consideration for others, negatively to confession,
engaged in such behaviors when the child "did some- and negatively to parent identification. This sug-
thing good." The affection score was a weighted gested that some of the findings previously reported
sum for the affection items. in the literature might be the artifactual results of a
'Background, information. The family's social class lack of IQ control. In forming the high and low
was determined from the child's responses to ques- quartile groups for these variables we therefore con-
tions about the father's occupation and education. trolled IQto the point of making the high-low
The distinction was basically between white collar differences in IQ negligible. Since IQ did not relate
and blue collar, In a few cases, families initially to guilt, there was no need to control IQ in the
classified as middle class were later recategorized as guilt analysis.
lower class as a result of more accurate and spe-
cific information from the parent about the father's RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
actual occupation and education.
Data, analysis. The data were analyzed separately To facilitate presentation of the results, the
for middle-class boys, middle-class girls, lower-
class boys, and lower-class girls. The procedure for significant findings relating moral develop-
each of these subsamples was to form two groups ment indexes and parental discipline are
one scoring high and one scoring low on each moral summarized in Tables 1 and 2 for the middle-

TABLE 1
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN CHILD'S MORALITY INDEXES AND
MOTHER'S DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUES: MIDDLE CLASS

Power assertion Love withdrawal Induction re parent Induction re peers"


Morality index
Eoys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum

Guilt (child's response) -p* c* +c* +P* +c* +p* +p**


-n* -i-n*
-p* +P*
Internal moral judg- -n* -c* -C* -c* +c*
ment (child's re-
sponse)
Confession (mother's p** _p** +n* +c*
report)
Accepts responsibility C* -c* _c** +n* +c* +c**
(teacher's report) -n* -n** +n*
+P*
Consideration for other + n* -p* -p* +c* +p** +p**
children (peers' +n*
ratings) +P*
Identification (child's -C* -c* -c** -n* +P* +c* +c*
response)

Note.The data sources of the significant findings summarized in Tables 1, 2, and 4-6 are indicated as follows: c (child re-
port), 0 n (parent report of current practices), p (parent report of past practices).
Data on induction regarding peers are incomplete since these data were obtained only from the parent reports of past
practices.
*p <.05.
**p < .01.
50 MARTIN L. HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

TABLE 2
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN CHILD'S MORALITY INDEXES AND
FATHER'S DISCIPLINE TECHNIQUES: MIDDLE CLASS

Power assertion Love withdrawal Induction re parent Induction re peers


Morality index
Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum

Guilt (child's response)


Internal moral judg- c +C*
ment (child's re-
sponse)
Confession (mother's +P* +P* + c* -P* -p*
report)
Accepts responsibility ##
-c* +c*
(teacher's report)
Consideration for other +n*
children (peers'
+p* -C* + c** +c**

ratings)
Identification (child's
response)

*p < . 0 5 .
**p < . 0 1 .

class sample and Tables 4 and 5 for the and induction regarding peers. In all, there
lower-class sample.5 Included in each table are a large number of significant findings es-
are relationships between each of the six in- pecially for the major moral indexesguilt
dexes of moral development and each of the and internalized moral judgments.
four measures of parental discipline: power In contrast to the mothers, few significant
assertion, love withdrawal, induction regard- findings were obtained for fathersfor boys
ing parents, and induction regarding peers. as well as girlsand those that were obtained
Tables 1 and 2 are based on present disci- did not fit any apparent pattern.
pline as reported by the child and present A further step in the analysis of induction
and past discipline as reported by the parent. was to combine all indexes of this category
Since the parent's report was not available for into a composite index. The results, presented
the lower-class sample, Tables 4 and 5 are in Table 3, were quite striking in the case of
based solely on the child's report of present mothers for all the moral indexes. Significant
parental discipline. findings, all in the expected direction, were
Middle-class discipline. The overall pattern obtained for boys on guilt, internal moral
of the findings in the middle class provides judgments, confession, and acceptance of re-
considerable support for our expectations, at sponsibility; and for girls on guilt, internal
least with respect to the mother's practices. moral judgments, and consideration for oth-
Thus the frequent use of power assertion by ers. When both sexes are combined, the find-
the mother is consistently associated with ings are significant for all the moral indexes.
weak moral development. The use of induc- The findings on identification are significant
tion, on the other hand, is consistently asso- only for boys, however.
ciated with advanced moral development. This In contrast to induction, love withdrawal
is true for both induction regarding parents relates infrequently to the moral indexes (see
5 Table 1). Further, in most cases in which sig-
Seven pages of tables giving medians for each
of the high and low quartile groups have been nificant relations between love withdrawal
deposited with the American Documentation Insti- and moral development do occur, they prove
tute. Order Document No. 9079 from the ADI Aux- to be negative. Taken as a whole, the impor-
iliary Publications Project, Library of Congress, tance of the distinction between love with-
Washington, D. C. 20540. Remit in advance $1.25
for microfilm or $1.25 for photocopies and make drawal and induction has been clearly demon-
checks payable to: Chief, Photoduplication Service, strated by these findings.
Library of Congress. In sum it is a pattern of infrequent use of
CHILD'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT SI

TABLE 3 There is, however, one major exception to


STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN this pattern. The peers' reports of the boy's
CHILD'S MORALITY INDEXES AND PABENT'S COM- consideration for other children is positively
POSITE INDUCTION SCORE: MIDDLE CLASS
related to the mother's report of their present
Mother's induction Father's induction use of power assertion (Table 1), A possible
Morality index explanation of this finding is that our measure
1
Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum of consideration is a poor one especially for
Guilt (child's response) +* +* +* the boys. In particular, there is no built-in
Internal moral judg- +* +* +**
ment (child's re- provision to assure that the behavior is based
sponse) on internal motivation. The motive behind
Confession (mother's +** +***
report)
Accepts responsibility +* +*
such behavior in the case of boys might in-
(teacher's report)
Consideration for other +** +* stead often be a need for approval by peers.
children (peers' rat- Why this should be the case for boys and not
ings)
Identification (child's +* for girls remains unclear. It should be noted,
response)
however, that consideration is a more deviant
value for boys than girls. Evidence for this is
*t <.OS. provided from a measure of values adminis-
*'*p < .01.
*** p < .005. tered to the children. The largest sex differ-
ence found was on the consideration item
power assertion and frequent use of induction ("goes out of his way to help others"). The
by middle-class mothers which generally ap- girls valued this trait more than the boys (p
pears to facilitate the facets of morality in- < .001). Thus consideration does appear to
cluded in this study.6 have a different meaning for the two sexes.
6
The question might be raised here as to the Lower-class discipline. In discussing the
extent to which these findings should be interpreted lower-class findings the lack of parent inter-
as independent. Do induction and power assertion view data must be kept in mind. Neverthe-
exert independent influence on morality, or are they less, there are several very apparent con-
but two aspects of the same influence; for example,
do the measures used require that someone high on trasts with the middle-class sample. Foremost
induction is necessarily low on power assertion? The among these is the general paucity of signifi-
findings in Table 1 suggest the influences are largely cant relationships between the child's moral
independent. That is, there are only a few instances development and his report of parental disci-
in which negative power assertion findings and posi-
tive induction findings for the same subsample were pline. This is especially striking in the case
obtained with the same measure. In most cases the of the mother's discipline. Furthermore, of
findings for the two types of discipline were ob-
tained with different measures, and in some instances (e.g., guilt in boys relates to induction, but not to
a finding was obtained for one but not the other power assertion).

TABLE 4
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN CHILD'S MORALITY INDEXES AND
MOTHER'S DISCIPLINE: LOWER CLASS

Power assertion Love withdrawal Induction re parent


Morality index
Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum

Guilt (child's response) + C*


Internal moral judgment (child's +C*
response)
Accepts responsibility (teacher's
report)
Consideration for other children +c* +c*
(peers' ratings)
Identification (child's response) -C* -C*

Note.Interview data were not obtained from the lower-class parents. Thus all entries in Tables 3 and 4 are based on child
reports. For the same reason lower-class data on confession and on induction regarding peers were unavailable.
*p < .05.
52 MARTIN L. HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

TABLE S
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN CHILD'S MORALITY INDEXES AND
FATHER'S DISCIPLINE: LOWER CLASS

Power assertion Love withdrawal Induction re parent

Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum

Guilt (child's response) -c* +C*


Internal moral judgment (child's
response)
Accepts responsibility (teacher's
report)
Consideration for other children
(peers' ratings)
Identification (child's response) -c* -C* + c* +c*

<.05.

those significant relationships that emerge, is, it may be more equally shared by the
two are inconsistent with our expectations. mother with the father, with siblings, members
First, as with the middle-class sample, the of the extended family, the child's peers, and
boy's consideration is related positively to others.7
the mother's use of power assertion. Second, Further research comparing the two classes
in contrast with the findings for the middle- needs to be performed. One might conjecture
class boys, guilt is positively associated with that because of the more diffuse socialization
the mother's use of love withdrawal, but un- process in the lower class the basis of internal-
related to the mother's use of power assertion ization may be quite different for children in
or induction. In summary, our expectations the two classes, with consequent differences
were not confirmed for the lower-class sample, in the kind of morality that develops.
and no general conclusion may be drawn. Affection. The relations between affection
The infrequent relationships between the and the six moral indexes are presented in
child's moral development and the mother's Table 6. The most notable features of this
discipline, compared to the middle-class sam- table are first, as expected, the relationships
ple, suggest that the lower-class mother's are positive; second, most of the findings, as
discipline may be less crucial and singular a with the discipline data, were obtained for
variable. This in turn may be due to several middle-class mothers. It should also be noted
factors. First, the mothers more often work that most of the findings are based on the
full time in the lower than in the middle class. child's report.
Second, the combination of large families and Role of the father. Several studies of de-
less space may result in the parent and child linquency (e.g., Glueck & Glueck, 1950; Mc-
interacting with many other people besides Cord & McCord, 19S8; Miller, 1958) sug-
each other. Third, according to the more tra- gest that the father is important in the devel-
ditional family structure usually found in the 7
Another possible explanation for the paucity of
lower class (e.g., Bronfenbrenner, 1 9 5 8 ) , the findings in the lower class is that the lower-class
father is more often the ultimate disciplining children are very low on morality. Thus if the upper
agent. In our sample, for example, boys more quartile of the lower class on morality were like
often reported that their mothers had the the lower quartile of the middle class, there would
be no reason to expect similar associations for the
fathers do the disciplining ("says she'll tell two classes. This possibility can be discounted since
your father") in the lower class than in the there was no overlap between the lower-class upper
middle class (p < .01). Fourth, lower-class quartile and the middle-class lower quartile. And
children are encouraged to spend more time although there was a general tendency for the lower
class to be lower on morality than the middle class,
outside the home than middle-class children. the difference was significant only for internal moral
For all these reasons the socializing process judgment and consideration for others, and only for
may be more diffuse in the lower class; that girls.
CHILD'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT 53

opment of internal controls. Our findings, es- ing most of the time and the mother handling
pecially in the middle class, seem to suggest most of the disciplining, as in our middle-
that this is not so. Relatively few significant class sample, the father's importance may lie
relationships were obtained between paternal mainly in providing an adequate role model
discipline and the child's morality, and sev- that operates in the background as a neces-
eral were in a direction opposite to that ex- sary supporting factor. Under these condi-
pected. tions, the specific lines along which the child's
Of course, it is possible that the role of the moral development proceeds may be deter-
father is more important than indicated in mined primarily by the mother's discipline.
this study. For example, the father might pro- An adequate role model is lacking, however,
vide the cognitive content of the standards by in extreme cases as when there is no father,
direct instruction rather than by his disci- when the father is a criminal, or when the
pline techniques. Lacking data on direct in- father is at home but unemployed, and this
struction, we could not test this possibility. may account for the findings obtained in the
Another possibility is that the role of the delinquency research.
father is a less direct one. That is, he may Methodological issues. Any study of child
affect the moral development of the child by rearing and moral development that relies on
his relationship to the mother and his influ- indexes of discipline and morality from the
ence on the discipline techniques chosen by same source is open to the criticism that the
the mother. This is indicated in a study of relationships that emerge are due to the lack
preschool children where evidence was found of independence of the sources. If that source
suggesting that women who are treated power is the child himself, the suspicion might be
assertively by their husbands tend to react by held that the child's report of parental disci-
using power assertive discipline on their chil- pline is simply another projective measure of
dren (Hoffman, 1963c). It may also be that the child's personality. It should be noted that
the father's role is ordinarily latent in its in the present study the relationships between
effects and only becomes manifest under ex- the child's morality and the parent's report
ceptional circumstances such as those often of discipline were generally in the same di-
associated with delinquency. That is, under rection as those involving the child's report of
normal conditions with the father away work- discipline. (We refer here to the middle-class-

TABLE 6
STATISTICALLY SIGNIFICANT RELATIONS BETWEEN CHILD'S MORALITY
INDEXES AND PARENT'S AFFECTION

Middle class Lower class

Morality index Mothers Fathers Mothers Fathers

Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum Boys Girls Sum

Guilt (child's response) +c* + C*


Internal moral judg- +c* -r-n* +n*
ment (child's re-
sponse)
Confession (mother's + C* + C* +P*
report)
Accepts responsibility +n* +n*
(teacher's report)
Consideration for other +p* +c* +c*
+n*
+c* +c*
children (peers'
ratings)
Identification (child's +c** +c** +c** +c*
response)

* p < .05,
**p < .01.
54 MARTIN L, HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

mother findings.) In addition, over half the child because it frustrates not only the act
significant findings for each sex involve rela- but also the child's need for autonomy. It
tions between measures obtained from differ- dramatically underscores the extent to which
ent respondents. the child's freedom is circumscribed by the
Further support for our findings comes superior power and resources of the adult
from a recent review in which our threefold world. This is no doubt exacerbated by the
discipline classification was applied to the fact that power assertion is likely to be ap-
previous research (Hoffman, in press). Since plied abruptly with few explanations or com-
most studies used a power assertive-nonpower pensations offered to the child. (The empiri-
assertive dichotomy, as indicated earlier, the cal evidence for a positive relation between
raw data were examined (and recoded where power assertion and anger has been sum-
necessary) to determine whether love with- marized by Becker, 1964.)
drawal, induction, or some other form of Second, a disciplinary technique also pro-
nonpower assertion was responsible for the vides the child with (a) a model for discharg-
findings. The results were clearly consistent ing that anger, and may provide him with (b)
with ours. Since a wide range of theoretical an object against which to discharge his anger.
and methodological approaches were involved The disciplinary act itself constitutes the
in the studies reviewed, our confidence in the model for discharging the anger which the
findings reported here is considerably child may imitate.
strengthened. Third, as much animal and human learning
A common problem also relevant to the research has now shown, what is learned will
present design is that no definitive conclusion depend on the stimuli to which the organism
may be drawn about causal direction of the is compelled to attend. Disciplinary tech-
relationships obtained. Any solution to this niques explicitly or implicitly provide such a
will have to wait upon application of the ex- focus. Both love withdrawal and power asser-
perimental method or longitudinal studies. tion direct the child to the consequences of
Nevertheless, some support for the proposi- his behavior for the actor, that is, for the
tion that discipline affects moral development, child himself, and to the external agent pro-
rather than the reverse, may be derived from ducing these consequences. Induction, on the
the fact that several findings bear on the use other hand, is more apt to focus the child's
of discipline in the past. If these reports are attention on the consequences of his actions
assumed to be reasonably valid, to argue that for others, the parent, or some third party.
the child's moral development elicits different This factor should be especially important in
discipline patterns (rather than the reverse) determining the content of the child's stand-
necessitates the further assumption that the ards. That is, if transgressions are followed
child's morality has not changed basically by induction, the child will learn that the im-
from early childhood. This is an unlikely as- portant part of transgressions consists of the
sumption in view of common observations harm done to others.
(e.g., about the child's changing acceptance of Fourth, to be effective the technique must
responsibility for transgression) and the find- enlist already existing emotional and motiva-
ings about the developmental course of moral tional tendencies within the child. One such
judgments obtained by Piaget (1948), Kohl- resource is the child's need for love. This
berg (1963), and others. factor depends on the general affective state
Theoretical disctission. In this section we of the parent-child relationship, the impor-
will analyze the disciplinary encounter into tance of which may be seen in the consistent
what we believe to be some of its most basic relationship obtained between affection and
cognitive and emotional factors. the moral indexes (Table 6). Given this af-
First, any disciplinary encounter generates fective relationship, some arousal of the need
a certain amount of anger in the child by for love may be both necessary for and capa-
preventing him from completing or repeating ble of motivating the child to give up his
a motivated act. Power assertion is probably needs of the moment and attend to (and thus
most likely to arouse intense anger in the be influenced by) the parent's discipline tech-
CHILD'S MORAL DEVELOPMENT 55

nique. Too much arousal, however, may pro- opment of moral standards and internaliza-
duce intense feelings of anxiety over loss of tion of controls because it elicits intense
love which may disrupt the child's response hostility in the child and simultaneously pro-
especially to the cognitive elements of the vides him with a model for expressing that
technique. All three types of discipline com- hostility outwardly and a relatively legitimate
municate some parental disapproval and are object against which to express it. It further-
thus capable of arousing the child's need for more makes the child's need for love less
love. But it is possible that only inductions salient and functions as an obstacle to the
can arouse this need to an optimal degree arousal of empathy. Finally, it sensitizes the
because the threat of love withdrawal implicit child to the punitive responses of adult au-
in inductions is relatively mild. Also, it is thorities, thus contributing to an externally
embedded in the context of a technique which focused moral orientation.
explicitly or implicitly suggests a means of Induction not only avoids these deleterious
reparation. Inductions are thus less likely to effects of power assertion, but also is the
disrupt the child's responseas well as his technique most likely to optimally motivate
general affective relationship with the parent the child to focus his attention on the harm
than either love withdrawal which may done others as the salient aspect of his trans-
arouse undue anxiety, or power assertion gressions, and thus to help integrate his ca-
which arouses anger and other disruptive pacity for empathy with the knowledge of the
affects. human consequences of his own behavior. Re-
The second emotional resource, empathy, peated experiences of this kind should help
has long been overlooked by psychologists as sensitize the child to the human consequences
a possibly important factor in socialization. of his behavior which may then come to
Empathy has been observed in children to stand out among the welter of emotional and
occur much before the child's moral controls other stimuli in the situation. The child is thus
are firmly established (e.g., Murphy, 1937). gradually enabled to pick out on his own,
We believe that it is a potentially important without help from others, the effects of his
emotional resource because it adds to the behavior, and to react with an internally based
aroused need for love the pain which the sense of guilt. Induction in sum should be the
child vicariously experiences from having most facilitative form of discipline for build-
harmed another, thus intensifying his motiva- ing long-term controls which are independent
tion to learn moral rules and control his im- of external sanctions, and the findings would
pulses. Of the three types of discipline under seem to support this view.
consideration, induction seems most capable Love withdrawal stands midway between
of enlisting the child's natural proclivities for the other two techniques in promoting inter-
empathy in the struggle to control his im- nalization. It provides a more controlled form
pulses. As indicated in greater detail else- of aggression by the parent than power asser-
where (Hoffman, 1963b; Hoffman, in press; tion, but less than induction. It employs the
Hoffman & Saltzstein, 1960), we view induc- affectionate relationship between child and
tion as both directing the child's attention to parent perhaps to a greater degree than the
the other person's pain, which should elicit other two techniques, but in a way more likely
an empathic response, and communicating to than they to produce a disruptive anxiety
the child that he caused that pain. Without response in the child. However, it falls short
the latter, the child might respond empathi- of induction in effectiveness by not including
cally but dissociate himself from the causal the cognitive material needed to heighten the
act. The coalescence of empathy and the child's awareness of wrongdoing and facili-
awareness of being the causal agent should tate his learning to generalize accurately to
produce a response having the necessary cog- other relevant situations, and by failing to
nitive (self-critical) and affective properties capitalize on his capacity for empathy.
of guilt. The weak and inconsistent findings for love
It follows from this analysis that power withdrawal suggest that anxiety over loss of
assertion is least effective in promoting devel- love may be a less important factor in the
56 MARTIN L. HOFFMAN AND HERBERT D. SALTZSTEIN

child's internalization than formerly thought It remains possible, of course, that a form of
to be the case. Before drawing this conclu- unconscious identification which may not be
sion, however, the possibility that love with- tapped by our more consciously focused meas-
drawal is only effective when the parent also ure serves to mediate between the parent's
freely expresses affection, as suggested by love withdrawal and the child's inhibition of
Sears et al. (19S7), should be considered. We hostile impulsesas suggested in psychoana-
were able to test this hypothesis by examining lytic theory.
the relation between love withdrawal and the In any case, our data do tend to show that
moral indexes within the group of subjects love withdrawal alone is an insufficient basis
who were above and below the median on for the development of those capacitieses-
affection, and also within the upper and lower pecially for guilt and moral judgmentwhich
quartile groups. The results do not corrobo- are critical characteristics of a fully devel-
rate the hypothesis: the relations between oped conscience.9
love withdrawal and the moral indexes do not 9
It should be noted that love withdrawal might
differ for the high- and low-affection groups. relate positively to guilt as defined in psychoanalytic
In an earlier study with preschool children, terms, that is, as an irrational response to one's own
impulses. Clearly our concept of guilt is quite dif-
however, love withdrawal was found to relate ferent from the psychoanalytic, pertaining as it does
negatively to the expression of overt hostility to the real human consequences of one's actions.
in the nursery school (Hoffman, 1963b). It
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