Perceived neighborhood violence and use of verbal aggression, corporal punishment, and physical abuse by a national sample of parents in Israel

Abstract

This study, based on an ecological perspective, examined the relation of perceived neighborhood violence, child misbehavior, parental attitudes to aggressive discipline tactics, and the actual use of aggressive discipline tactics. Research questions were: To what extent is perceived neighborhood violence associated with aggressive discipline by parents? What is the mechanism through which perceived neighborhood violence is linked to aggressive discipline? Data were obtained from a stratified probability sample of 1,649 women. Findings indicated that the more the study participants perceived their neighborhood as violent, the more frequent is the parental use of aggressive discipline. It seems that child misbehavior and parental approval of corporal punishment are affected by perceived neighborhood violence and, in turn, affect parental use of aggressive disciplines. Furthermore, the relationships of child misbehavior, parental approval of aggressive discipline, and the use of aggressive discipline are different in low and high levels of perceived neighborhood violence.

Parental misperceptions of in‐group norms for child discipline

“…Furthermore, there were no significant additive or multiplicative effects of child age or sex on parenting perceptions of self‐reported behaviour. It is possible that gender and age effects identified in other studies may not apply in these highly stressed communities, a finding in line with other studies that find that high levels of community violence increase the likelihood of violent parenting (Winstock & Straus, 2011). Future studies should investigate the conditions under which these age and gender effects apply.…”

Dyadic concordance and discordance in family violence: A powerful and practical approach to research and practice

“…Exposure to similar risk and protective factors. This is especially likely in the case of marital dyads who live in the same neighborhood including violent neighborhoods (Winstok & Straus, 2011) and share many life experiences including stressors such as unemployment.…”

Addressing punitive violence against children in Australia, Japan and the Philippines

“…The importance of parents’ attitudes has been repeatedly demonstrated. For example, Winstok and Straus (2011) found that parents’ approval of “aggressive discipline” (beating and/or physical force) predicts their use of emotional punishment (shouting, scolding, “telling the child off”), physical punishment (spanking, smacking, shaking), and physical abuse (beating, punching, hitting with a stick or belt). Approval and normalization of physical punishment has been found to be a powerful predictor of its use (Ateah & Durrant, 2005; Durrant, Rose-Krasnor, & Broberg, 2003; Vittrup, Holden, & Buck, 2006; Socolar & Stein, 1995).…”