Poster #52 - Why do Children Comply with Parental Restrictions in the Personal Domain?

• In Event: Poster Session 05

Abstract

According to social domain theory (SDT; Smetana et al., 2014), personal issues are defined as actions that are considered a matter of personal choice because they only affect the person. Numerous studies have shown that children judge some issues as personal and up to them to decide (Killen & Smetana, 1999), yet they often comply with parental restrictions regarding these choices (Smetana, Wong, et al., 2014). Few studies have investigated this contradiction, although research shows that personal choice can be overridden by other concerns like conventions (Smetana & Bitz, 1996) or prudential issues pertaining to safety and health. The current study investigated children's understanding of personal issues and their judgments of whether to comply when parents prohibit personal choice, examined as a function of age, punishment and different maternal domain-specific explanations (prudential, conventional) for the rule.

We conducted semi-structured interviews with 123 US children (56 male) ranging in age from 5- to 9 years (Mage = 6.80). Children (mostly white and upper-middle-class) heard stories where an actor wanted to engage in a personal activity (i.e., wearing a costume, toy choice). Stories varied by punishment condition (punishment/no punishment) and domain-specific explanations (prudential or social-conventional) for restricting the child's choice. Children evaluated and justified the acceptability of the act, the maternal prohibition and the domain explanations. They also evaluated the hypothetical actor's emotion attributions when choices were inhibited, judgments about who should decide, and judgments about what the actor (and the child, if in the situation) should do.

When described without a prohibition, children saw the personal activities as acceptable and judged it wrong for the hypothetical mother to prohibit the act, based mainly on personal reasons. However, 2 (Punishment) X 2 (type of maternal explanation) repeated measures ANOVAs with age as a covariate indicated that most children reported that the actor should comply. There were no effects for punishment (whether punishment was specified or not) or for the domain of the explanation. However, children rated prudential explanations as more acceptable than conventional ones and provided explanations in line with the domain (prudential concerns in the prudential condition and conventional and pragmatic reasons in the convention condition; see Table 1 for means). They attributed more negative emotions to not being able to pursue their personal choice in the conventional than the prudential condition. Older children attributed more negative emotions, regardless of explanation. They were more likely to acknowledge that the mother should decide in the conventional than the prudential condition (see Figure 1). Children also stated that they were more likely to comply with the maternal prohibition than the hypothetical child in the story.

This study showed that children comply with parental demands regardless of punishment or domain explanations because other concerns can override personal choices. Children preferred prudential explanations to conventional ones, as reflected in reasoning focusing on the well-being and safety of the child. All children understood the acts as personal, but older children found restrictions on their choice as less acceptable regardless of domain explanation.

Authors

• Fatma Betul Zeyrek, University of Rochester
  Presenting Author

• Judi Smetana, University of Rochester