Why Did Parents Do That to Their Children? A Message Production Perspective on the Research of Child Physical Abuse

• In Event: Dealing with Loss, Abuse, and Disease: Perspectives for Family Communication

Abstract

As a serious societal problem, child physical abuse (CPA) is seen as a very complex set of behaviors (Straus, 1997). By summarizing current trends, this paper identified that there is scarce research conducted on abusive parents’ goal formation. From a message production perspective, this paper proposes that future research try to gain a more systematical theoretical explanation for how abusive mothers mentally organize their information and form interactive goals before taking behavioral actions.

Author

• Xiaowei Shi, Purdue University