Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation andRetributionAuthor(s): Ron A. AstorSource: Child Development, Vol. 65, No. 4 (Aug., 1994), pp. 1054-1067Published by: Wiley on behalf of the Society for Research in Child DevelopmentStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1131304 .

Accessed: 21/09/2013 23:53

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

.JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

.

Wiley and Society for Research in Child Development are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve andextend access to Child Development.

http://www.jstor.org

This content downloaded from 132.174.255.3 on Sat, 21 Sep 2013 23:53:43 PMAll use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=black

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=srcd

http://www.jstor.org/stable/1131304?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp


Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution

Ron A. Astor

University of Michigan

ASTOR, RON A. Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provo- cation and Retribution. CHILD DEVELOPMENT, 1994, 65, 1054-1067. Several theories assume that the approval of violence is related to deficits in moral reasoning. However, this assumption has rarely been empirically tested. This inquiry examined violent and nonviolent children's moral reasoning about violence in family and peer situations. 108 subjects (54 violent and 54 nonviolent, aged 8-1, 10-2, 12-2) selected from 2 inner city schools were asked to evaluate unprovoked and provoked violent situations. All the children condemned unprovoked violence using moral reasoning. With provoked situations, the violent group focused more on the immorality of the provocation and perceived "hitting back" as a form of reciprocal justice. The nonviolent group perceived "hitting" worse than the psychological harm of the provocation and condemned the violence. The results suggest that both the approval and disapproval of violence were justified by moral reasoning. It was proposed that the violent children's greater focus on psychological provocations may be due to experiences and self-perceptions of victimization.

-The goal of this study was to examine both violent and nonviolent children's moral reasoning about situations involving family violence and violence between peers.' It has been broadly assumed that violent children's social cognitions, attitudes, or thinking patterns contribute to violent behavior. Many clinical and theoretical approaches in psychology assume that the violent individual suffers from either cognitive, thought, moral, or attributional deficits/distortions. However, frequently these assumptions are not empirically tested. This is true particularly in the psychodynamic literature, where violence is conceived of as a symptom of "in- ternal conflicts" or "anti-social personality traits" within the individual child (Fried- lander, 1947; Keith, 1984). However, clinical

interventions from other theoretical perspectives involving social skills training (Pepler, King, & Byrd, 1991; Spivack & Shure, 1974), social learning theory (Ban- dura, 1973; Patterson, 1982), and cognitive behaviorism (Kendall, Ronan, & Epps, 1991; Novaco, 1979), also make assumptions about how deficits or distortions in individual's cognitions contribute to violence.

In particular, the role of morality or the violent child's lack of ability to judge using moral reasoning is an underlying implicit assumption. Numerous investigators of peer and family violence maintain that cultural/ familial attitudes and beliefs or negative role models are factors legitimizing the use of violence within the family and peer group. A

This study is based on a doctoral dissertation, submitted to the University of California, Berkeley, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Ph.D. degree. This research was supported by a graduate dissertation fellowship from the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation. The author gratefully acknowledges the support and guidance of Elliot Turiel, Nadine Lambert, and Richard Barth on the dissertation. Elliot Turiel is thanked for his invaluable comments on this manuscript and its revisions. Shawn Locke is thanked for her support of this research. Requests for reprints may be sent to Ron Astor, School of Social Work or School of Education, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1285.

'The definition of "violence" is: "An act carried out with the intention, or perceived intention of causing physical pain or injury to another person. The physical pain can range from slight pain, such as in a slap, to murder. The basis for 'intent to hurt' may range from a concern with a child's safety to hostility so intense that the death of the other person is desired" (Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980, p. 20). This definition is more specific than the term "aggression" (or some investigators' use of the term "violence") which can refer to behaviors, such as teasing, vandalism, and verbal aggression, which are different from physical aggression toward people. This definition of violence includes the intention to cause pain, which differs from some other researchers' use of the term.

[Child Development, 1994, 65, 1054-1067. @ 1994 by the Society for Research in Child Development, Inc. All rights reserved. 0009-3920/94/6504-0007$01.00]



Ron A. Astor 1055

theme in many articles and studies is that violent families regard the violent behavior as normal, justifiable, necessary, and correct (see Herzberger, 1983, for a review). There- fore, it has been suggested that children growing up in violent families or school settings may think that violence is an acceptable behavior (Owens & Straus, 1979; Rit- chie, 1983; Widom, 1989).

However, research directly exploring the development of children's moral reasoning about violence has rarely been conducted. Frequently, researchers indirectly infer the presence or absence of moral reasoning from children's behavior, judgments, or affect without directly studying it. There- fore, if a child hits, or judges hitting acceptable, or shows no signs of remorse it is com- monly assumed that the child's thinking did not contain moral reasoning. Nevertheless, most acts of violence occur in complex social situations. Particularly with situations that involve violence between family members or between friends, the child must consider a variety of personal, social, and moral factors in making a judgment. Without exploring the child's judgment it is virtually impos- sible to evaluate whether moral reasoning was involved in the decision.

Research highlights the role of perceived "provocation" for the enactment of violence (Bandura, 1973; Patterson, 1982). Violent children are more likely than nonviolent children to attribute negative inten- tions to others in "ambiguous situations" (Dodge, 1980, 1991; Dodge, Pettit, Mc- Claskey, & Brown, 1986). Therefore, the ex- ploration of violent and nonviolent children's moral understanding of different "provocations" and under what social cir- cumstances "physical retribution" is legitimate are potentially important areas of inquiry.

Piaget (1932, p. 295) suggested that nonviolent children's reasoning surrounding physical retribution among peers is perceived differently from parent/child retribution. In general, Piaget believed that young children's morality was contingent on adult authority or rules. Therefore, he felt that young children would always experience parent/child physical retribution as legitimate because it emanated from an adult (he called it "expiatory punishment"). In contrast to adult/child retribution, Piaget hypothesized that peer retribution grew in direct proportion to the child's sense of reciprocity and equality (he called this "re-

ciprocal punishment"). Consequently, he predicted that younger children would condemn vengeance (hitting in response to a provocation of hitting) between peers while older children would find it acceptable due to their developed sense of reciprocity and equality. Piaget cites and discusses several empirical studies in support of this hypothe- sis (1932, pp. 297-301).

In contrast to Piaget's general hypotheses concerning young children's ability to employ moral reasoning, a series of studies (Davidson, Turiel, & Black, 1983; Nucci, 1981; Smetana, 1981; Smetana, Kelly, & Twentyman, 1984; Turiel, 1983; Weston & Turiel, 1980) demonstrated that young children could utilize moral reasoning when presented with prototypical moral situations. Prototypical refers to actions that are unprovoked, intentional, and are domain specific (see Turiel, 1983, for elaboration on criteria distinguishing psychological, conventional, and moral domains of social thought). For instance, a child hitting a peer for no reason (unprovoked) is a prototypical moral situation. When presented with unprovoked situations about physical harm between people, children judged the physi- cally harmful act as wrong describing the intrinsic features of the act (such as "it hurts others") rather than reasoning about conventional rules (we're not supposed to hit in school).

The purpose of the current study was to explore how children reason morally about violence in the family and between peers. There are several reasons why this study focused exclusively on family and peer violence. First, many theoretical orientations and research studies have implicated the family and peer group as primary sources in- fluencing the development of violent behavior in children. Second, these are the con- texts in which most young children are likely to experience violent behavior first- hand. Other forms of violence (between strangers, students and teachers, police offi- cers and citizens etc.) are also extremely important areas of inquiry. However, research indicates that violence in the family and between peers (in schools) are common and influential experiences for many young children (Olweus, 1987; Straus et al., 1980; Wi- dom, 1989).

This inquiry had several specific objec- tives. First, it directly examined violent and nonviolent children's reasoning concerning prototypical (unprovoked) violent situations.



1056 Child Development

To date, research has not been conducted on violent children's ability to employ moral reasoning in prototypical situations. Knowl- edge about their ability to reason in these situations may have implications for future clinical interventions and developmental research. Second, the study examined violent and nonviolent children's judgments about situations involving different provocations and subsequent retribution to these provocations. This inquiry focused exclusively on "provocation" mainly because much of the empirical literature on the social cognition of violence describes the central role of "perceived provocation" for the enactment of violence. However, few inquiries have directly compared violent and nonviolent children's moral reasoning regarding the role of provocation for the enactment of violence. Clearly, there are other important reasons for the enactment of violence not addressed by this study (such as state-mandated violence or group/mob violence) that should be addressed by future research. Nevertheless, the role of "perceived provocation" appears to be prominent in the various literatures dealing with violence and a direct examination of children's reasoning regarding famil- iar forms of violence may be informative.

For the unprovoked violence situations no differences were expected between the violent and nonviolent children's judgments and justifications. These situations were un- ambiguous and did not involve provocation. It was predicted that the violent children's judgments would not differ from those of the nonviolent children when the situations involve one moral component. As mentioned earlier, numerous studies have found that violent children's cognitions do not differ from those of nonviolent children when the provocation described is straightforward and un- ambiguous (Dodge, 1980, 1991; Dodge et al., 1986). Other studies have shown that most young children can employ moral reasoning when the situations presented are unprovoked (Davidson et al., 1983; Nucci, 1981; Smetana, 1981; Smetana et al., 1984; Turiel, 1983; Weston & Turiel, 1980). Therefore, the violent group was expected to condemn the unprovoked violence and demonstrate the ability to employ moral judgments.

With the situations involving provocation and physical retribution all the children in the study were expected to show a higher acceptability of violence when compared

with their judgments in the unprovoked situations. However, this inquiry predicted that the introduction of "provocation" will influence violent children's approval of violence more than it will influence the nonviolent children. It was hypothesized that violent children would interpret "nonviolent provocations," such as name calling, stealing, social rule violations, and social embarrassment, as more severe transgressions than the nonviolent children. Prior research has suggested that violent children perceive provocation differently than nonviolent children (Dodge, 1991; Dodge et al., 1986). It is possible that violent children perceive hitting in response to nonviolent moral provocations as a form of justice or self-defense. Therefore, it was predicted that the violent group would focus on the transgression and immorality of the nonviolent provocation and allow the hitting back response, whereas the nonviolent group would give more weight to the immorality of the violent response and condemn the violent action. Consequently, in the provocation/retribution situations the violent and nonviolent groups were expected to differ in their judgments on the acceptability of violence (all right vs. not all right), yet both use moral reasoning to justify their judgments.

Method

Subjects The subjects included 108 children

evenly divided among grades 2, 4, and 6 (mean ages = 8-1, 10-2, and 12-2 years, respectively). Each age/grade group was com- posed of 18 violent and 18 nonviolent children. Therefore, the study had a total of 54 violent children and 54 nonviolent children. The children were enrolled in two San Fran- cisco Bay Area inner city public schools with a total population of 1,370 students. All of the children in the sample came from families with incomes below the poverty line.

The children in the violent group were selected on the basis of the frequency and salience of their violent acts during a 2- month period. The second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade teachers, teacher assistants, yard monitors, and principals of the schools kept a tally/log of the violent transactions of the children in these grades. Only violent acts were recorded (as defined by Straus et al., 1980, p. 20) to distinguish between the "acting-out" children who's behavior included lying, vandalism, stealing, and verbal ag-



Ron A. Astor 1057

gression from the violent children who caused physical harm to others. At the end of the 2 months, 18 children from each age category with the highest frequency and salience of violent acts were considered for the violent group. The final selection for the violent group was simplified because the tallies showed that the children who had the highest frequency of violent events were the same children who had the greatest number of high salience events. The strong relation between frequency and severity of violence in young children has been discussed by several researchers (see Patterson, Capaldi, & Bank, 1991, for a review). Therefore, all of the children chosen for the violent group had frequent physical altercations at school (415 recorded acts) and were involved in high salience acts of violence (186 recorded acts) during the 2-month period. The high salience acts included throwing rocks at students, beating up a substitute teacher, hitting students with objects (e.g., a chair), fist fights, knife fights, threatening other students with a gun, and gang/group violence on school grounds. Most of the acts were fist fights between individuals on the playground.

Selection for the violent group de- pended on the highest frequency and salience of violent acts per each grade level. Therefore, ethnicity, gender, socioeconomic level, and family composition factors were purposely not controlled in the initial selection of the violent group. However, these factors were considered in matching the nonviolent group with the violent group. Matching between the violent and nonviolent groups was done on a group, rather than one-to-one basis.

The group of 54 nonviolent children (18 from each age group) were matched with the violent group for classroom, age, gender, ethnicity, family composition, and socioeconomic factors. This nonviolent group was selected from a tally listing children who had infrequent or no violent transactions during the 2 months. A total of 12 events were recorded for the nonviolent group. However, the recorded altercations in this group were not serious in salience (e.g., a soft push during a verbal conflict or throwing a crunched paper ball at another student). Each group (violent and nonviolent) consisted of 25 Afri- can American males, 14 African American fe- males, 11 Hispanic males, 3 Hispanic fe- males, and 1 Asian male (N = 54 for each group). The total sample was 31% female,

69% male, 72% African American, 26% His- panic, and 2% Asian. White children were not included in this sample because there were no white children attending these two inner-city schools.

Design and Procedures Each child received a 40-min structured

interview task pertaining to violence. Each child was presented with short vignettes de- picting family violence and peer violence, and then asked to evaluate the described situations. The interviewer and subjects had no knowledge of the violent/nonviolent status of the children interviewed. Further- more, the subjects had no knowledge that the study was comparing the responses of "violent" and "nonviolent" children. The interviews were tape-recorded and subse- quently transcribed.

Based on the family and school violence literatures, four types of interpersonal relationships were explored. Specifically, violence between siblings (Sibling), violence between parents and children (Parent/ Child), violence between two parents (Par- ent/Parent), and violence between peers on school grounds (Peers). Within each of these four categories of interpersonal relationships two forms of violence were examined. First, situations that depicted a perpetrator who intentionally commits an act of violence for no apparent reason. These four stories (one for Sibling, Parent/Child, Parent/Parent, and Peers) are referred to as the "Unpro- voked" condition. Second, children were presented with social situations where one story character "hits back" in response to a nonviolent psychological provocation from another character. These four situations (one for Sibling, Parent/Child, Parent/Parent, and Peer) are referred to as the "Provoca- tion/Retribution" condition. All together the children in this study were presented with eight short vignettes. The presentation of the Unprovoked and Provocation/Retribu- tion stories were counterbalanced within each grade level and within violent/nonviolent groups.

The four unprovoked stories are as follows:

Story 1 (Sibling): Josh and Mark are brothers. One day Mark was playing in the yard. He was running across the yard and fell down and hurt himself. He was really mad. He turned around and saw Josh. He hit Josh on the head. Josh looked upset and walked away.




Story 2 (Parent/Child): Jim's dad was fixing his car. He was getting very upset because the car would not start. Jim decided to go out and watch his father fix the car. When Jim asked, "What are you doing?" his father slapped him across the face. Jim began to cry.

Story 3 (Parent/Parent): Sarah's father came home late from work. He sat down on the couch and turned on the T.V. He looked tired and a little upset. Sarah's mother came into the room and said, "Dinner will be ready in just a few minutes." He then picked up a heavy ashtray and threw it at her. It hit her in the head and she ran into the kitchen.

Story 4 (Peer): John and Carl are playing on the school yard after lunch. Suddenly, for no reason Carl hit John in the head. John looked upset and walked away.

The four Provoked/Retribution stories contain personal offenses or provocations that cause psychological harm. These vignettes were purposely designed to present nonviolent (psychological) provocations. However, the response to the nonviolent provocations in all four stories is a violent one. The stories are as follows:

Story 1 (Sibling): Jack and Ron are brothers. One day after school, they were both playing in the backyard of their apartment. After a few minutes of playing Jack started teasing and calling Ron bad names. So Ron punched Jack in the stom- ach and face. Jack got hurt and cried a lot.

Story 2 (Parent/Child): Judy has several chores to do at home. She has to take the trash out, wash the dishes, clean her room, and sweep the floor. Judy is supposed to do these chores when she comes home from school before she goes out to play or watch T.V. One day Judy didn't feel like doing the chores. Judy's mom said she had to do them anyways. Judy listened to her mother and did all the chores. But when Judy fin- ished she said to her mother, "I hate doing all the chores and you are mean for making me do them-I have the meanest mother in the world-I hate you." Judy's mother then slapped her across the face. Judy cried.

Story 3 (Parent/Parent): Max's mother was tired after a long day at work so she sat down on the couch. When Max's Dad came home he was hungry and wanted to eat. He said to his wife very nicely, "What's for dinner tonight?" Max's mom said, "I don't know-cook your own dinner you fat pig." He then ran over and hit her in the head. She ran out of the house crying.

Story 4 (Peer): Shira and Natasha are playing on the school yard. After a few minutes they start arguing and yelling at each other. Shira starts to walk away when Natasha says, "Awww, you're ugly and stupid and everybody in your family is

ugly and stupid too." Shira then turned around and hit Natasha. They started fighting really hard and both got hurt.

The Parent/Child stories were purposely structured so that the parent was in the hitting role. These two stories would test Piaget's earlier discussed hypotheses regarding children's perceptions of adult/child "expiatory" and "reciprocal" punishment. The responses to the unprovoked and provoked stories may provide information on how violent and nonviolent children view different types of parent/child "punishment" and if they use moral reasoning or adult authority as justifications for their judgments.

Assessment The subjects were asked standard fol-

low-up questions for the Unprovoked and Provocation/Retribution stories. The specific questions following each story were adapted to correspond with the characters and situations depicted in each situation. The questions asked after each of the four unprovoked scenarios follow a similar pat- tern. First, each child was asked to evaluate the act (Was the act all right or not all right? Why or why not?). The second question explored the child's recognition and evaluation of a rule prohibiting the act (Did the person who hit break a rule? If so what type of rule? What is the purpose of such a rule?). These two sets of questions (evaluation of the act and recognition of rules) were aimed at obtaining evaluations of the moral transgression presented in the story.

The initial questions asked after the Provocation/Retribution stories also examined children's judgment/justifications (Was it all right or not all right for person A to hit person B for name calling? Why or why not?) and understanding of rules (Did person A break a rule by hitting person B ? Did person B break a rule by calling A names? If so, what type of rules did they break ? Why do they have such rules?). However, the next set of follow-up questions hypotheti- cally manipulated the provocations (e.g., lying, stealing, not following an adult or social rule) to measure the impact of provocation on the child's judgment/reasoning about the legitimacy of hitting back (e.g., Was it all right or not all right for person A to hit person B if person B lied to A? Why or why not?). Finally, the last series of questions dealt with the issue of reciprocity and justice once a child is hit. When children hit back,



Ron A. Astor 1059

are they attempting to restore justice (hit an equal amount back) or just inflict random or unsystematic pain? (e.g., Was it all right or not all right for person A to hit person B if person B hit A first? Why? If person B hit A four times how many times should person A hit back? If person A hit B back six times would that be all right or not all right? Why?). It was predicted that most of the children will advocate "hitting back the same amount" or "not hit back at all."

Coding and Scoring Children's judgments were coded into

two categories: (a) all right, (b) not all right. The children's responses were also coded for the types of justifications given for their yes/no judgments. The justification coding system was modified from a system developed by Davidson et al. (1983). The following represent abbreviated categories used to code the justifications: (1) physical welfare, (2) psychological welfare, (3) wrongful in- tentions of violator, (4) principles, (5) appeal to aspects of fairness, (6) features of social structure regulations, (7) interpersonal expectations, (8) personal expectations regarding people's behavior, (9) self-oriented con- cerns, (10) punishment retribution, (11) pragmatics, (12) it is not acceptable to hit in any situation, (13) don't know-no response.

The different justification categories fell into moral and nonmoral domains of social reasoning (see Davidson et al., 1983). Moral justification categories deal with children's concern for physical and psychological welfare of others, or justice/rights for peers or family members described. Nonmoral justifications pertain to social organizational or personal factors (Turiel, 1983). These more specific categories were later collapsed into the general categories of moral or nonmoral for the purpose of analyzing the type of domains used in the justifications (see David- son et al., 1983; Nucci, 1981; Smetana et al., 1984; for studies and discussions regarding the collapse of the justification categories). In general, justifications coded in categories 1-5 were collapsed as moral and 6-11 as nonmoral.

Coding reliability was assessed through randomly selecting and recoding 25% of the protocols by a second judge. The primary and second judge had no knowledge of the violent/nonviolent status of the interviewee. The second judge had no knowledge of the hypotheses put forth in this inquiry. In- terjudge agreement in the coding of act eval-

uations was 100% and in the coding ofjusti- fications was 83%.

Results

Preliminary single sample chi-square analyses (within the violent and nonviolent groups) comparing ethnicity, gender, and or- der of story presentation on act evaluations revealed no significant differences between subgroups. Therefore, gender and ethnicity were combined (within the violent and nonviolent groups) for subsequent analyses. However, it is cautioned (particularly with the Provocation/Retribution stories) that this should not be interpreted as evidence that gender or ethnic origin does not affect judgment regarding violence. The effects of ethnicity and gender were not the focus of this study. The subjects in both the violent and nonviolent groups were selected only for their extreme homogeneous (violent or nonviolent) behavior. Ethnicity and gender were ignored in the initial selection process so that only the most violent children would be selected for the violent group. The nonviolent group was matched with the violent group for ethnicity and gender (also, age, socioeconomic level, and classroom factors); however, the children were chosen out of a pool of extremely nonviolent children. Therefore, differences regarding gender and ethnicity were not expected within the violent and nonviolent groups. To answer questions involving ethnicity and gender future studies should examine gender and ethnic samples with more behavioral variability.

It was found that all children in the study (100%) negatively evaluated each of the four Unprovoked situations. Further- more, almost all of the children used moral justifications (among other components) for each of the scenarios (100%, 100%, 100%, 99%, for Sibling, Parent/Child, Parent/Par- ent, and Peer stories, respectively). The most frequently used justifications for all four stories were concern for the physical welfare of the victim (mentioned by 75%, 87%, 87%, 88% for the Sibling, Parent/ Child, Parent/Parent, and Peer stories) and the wrongful intent of the perpetrator (mentioned by 80%, 76%, 63%, 79% for the Sib- ling, Parent/Child, Parent/Parent, and Peer stories). In addition, the large majority of children identified unprovoked violence as a violation of social rules (87%, 91%, 95%, 96% for the Sibling, Parent/Child, Parent/ Parent, and Peer stories). All the children reasoned that the social rules against unpro-




voked hitting existed for moral reasons (i.e., to prevent physical harm).

Evaluations of Provoked Violence For each question following the Provo-

cation/Retribution stories an omnibus chi- square test between violent and nonviolent groups was conducted. If significant, three more chi-square analyses comparing age differences between the violent and nonviolent groups were conducted. If the omnibus test was nonsignificant, no further analyses were applied. The chi-square critical value for each test was set at 6.63. To control for total experiment error rate the significance alpha level for each family (omnibus test plus three possible age comparisons) was set at .05. Since there were potentially four tests in each family the significance level for each test was set at .0125 (.05/4; see Marascuilo & Serlin, 1988).

Evaluation of Act: Hitting in Response to Name Calling

Table 1 represents the percentage of violent (V) and nonviolent (NV) children approving of hitting in response to name calling as well as the five other manipulated provocations for each of the four Provoca- tion/Retribution stories. Chi-square values and significance levels are also presented in Table 1. The violent children were significantly more likely than the nonviolent children to approve of violence in response to name calling in Sibling, Parent/Parent, and Peer stories (see row labeled "Name calling" for percentages and significance levels).2

Table 2 collapses the specific justification categories and represents the percentage of violent and nonviolent children who used moral only, nonmoral only, or both moral and nonmoral reasoning for each of the stories and provocation manipulations. As predicted, the data shows that for the "name calling" provocation virtually all the children's justifications contained elements of moral reasoning (see Table 2 in the row "Name calling" for percentages). Taken to-

gether, Tables 1 and 2 (see "Name calling" rows) suggest that children's employment of moral reasoning was not dependent on approval or disapproval of the violent act.

This can be explained by a more careful examination of justification categories mentioned by the children. Table 3 shows the percentage of violent and nonviolent children who mentioned justifications of physical harm and psychological harm for the provocations of name calling, lying, and stealing. The percentages suggest that violent and nonviolent children focused on different moral components in the stories. For example, in the Sibling, Parent/Parent, and Peer situations more violent than nonviolent children mentioned the psychological harm caused by the name calling (see Table 3 under "Psychological harm" in the "Name calling" row for the three stories). Con- versely, with the same three stories more nonviolent than violent children mentioned the physical harm component (see Table 3 under "Physical harm" in the "Name calling" row for percentages). In general, with the exception of the Parent/Child story, the violent children tended to focus on the specific justifications of"psychological harm" of the provocation (for moral provocations). In contrast, the nonviolent children tended to focus on the character who hit without proper cause and on the outcome of "physical harm." The results of the rule recognition questions provide additional support for these assertions.

Rule recognition against hitting for name calling.-The violent and nonviolent children differed in their recognition of rules against hitting for the Provocation/Re- tribution stories. Table 4 shows the percentage of violent and nonviolent children recognizing a rule against "hitting" and "name calling." In the Sibling and Peer stories the violent children were significantly less likely than the nonviolent children to recognize rules prohibiting hitting after being called a name, all X2(1, N = 108) > 7.23, p < .007.3

2 Very few age differences were found in this study. However, some significant age differences between the violent and nonviolent groups were found for Sibling and Peer stories. The fourth- and sixth-grade violent children were more likely to approve of hitting peers and siblings than nonviolent children, all X2(1, N = 36) > 11.25, p < .0008. In contrast, the nonviolent children's approval remained relatively low and stable across age groups.

3 Differences were found in the Sibling and Peer stories between the fourth-grade violent and nonviolent groups, all X2(1, N = 36) > 9.03, p < .003. The violent fourth graders were less likely than the nonviolent fourth graders to mention a rule against hitting (28% vs. 89% for Sibling, and 28% vs. 78% for Peers).



*4 > 00 10 ?c ? ?c 0000 1

00 t- t- cq 00 oq * qIfqIfq* q

Q) ) 0 1" 0

00> C Z 01""cr

o P 3500 0~ ~ JG -

CIP)

z CIP) ?c 0 cCd

>

Cr. 10 FI 0 0 *14~.

M 4-0

mU 1- mo*'~ ~ z ;-Z -~ -c<L 0J V

0C000 CO

tc qCIP

p.4 10 ~ T4C ~)

0-4~

> * > CC )

CQ) -' 13b-C 0

Z z ?-CCCK

0-4

> -0

* **

p01 0A FA1-1

ZO

0 ~ Z -nC ( 21

0 5

V) ~ *~ Oc~ ? L OZ ~~~r~ ~ 3"L DoO~~- ~ "~ d

c~ 4

c~s s ;WU

c~E~sc ;;W Q



TABLE 2

VIOLENT AND NONVIOLENT CHILDREN'S USING MORAL ONLY (MO), NONMORAL ONLY (NMO), OR BOTH

MORAL AND NONMORAL (M and NM) JUSTIFICATIONS FOR EACH PROVOCATION/RETRIBUTION STORY

(Percentages)

STORY

Parent/ Parent/ Sibling Child Parent Peer

PROVOCATION TYPE V NV V NV V NV V NV

Act evaluation: Name calling:

MO ........................................ 76 67 65 61 89 83 80 70 NM O ........................................ 4 2 0 6 0 0 0 0 M and NM .............................. 20 31 35 33 11 17 20 30

Manipulations: Lying:

MO .......................................... 65 68 44 61 80 80 74 57 NMO ........................................ 6 6 4 9 0 0 0 4 M and NM .............................. 29 26 52 30 20 20 26 39

Stealing: M O .......................................... 54 33 57 74 83 80 61 39 NM O ........................................ 5 17 6 2 0 2 2 5 M and NM ............................ 41 50 37 24 17 18 37 56

Rule/consensus: M O

........................................... 7 11 48 61 ... ... 56 63

NMO ........................................ 56 39 37 22 ... ... 26 6 M and NM .............................. 37 50 15 17 ... ... 18 31

Hitting: M O ...........................................

72 52 28 26 87 74 83 65 NMO ........................................ 7 15 33 37 0 2 0 7 M and NM .............................. 21 33 39 37 13 24 17 28

Six hits for four hits: MO .......................................... 67 48 32 26 85 76 82 69 NM O ........................................ 7 15 35 39 0 0 0 7 M and NM .............................. 26 37 33 35 15 24 18 24

NoTE.-Total N = 108 (V = 54 and NV = 54); for Parent/Parent Rule/Consensus questions were not asked.

TABLE 3

VIOLENT (V) AND NONVIOLENT (NV) CHILDREN MENTIONING SPECIFIC JUSTIFICATION CATEGORIES OF

PHYSICAL HARM AND PSYCHOLOGICAL HARM FOR THE NAME CALLING, LYING, AND STEALING QUESTIONS

(Percentages)

STORY


JUSTIFICATION TYPE V NV V NV V NV V NV

Physical harm: Name calling .............................. 30 87 43 50 37 85 20 78

Lying ........................................ 28 35 20 41 28 46 11 44

Stealing ........................................ 9 37 17 33 32 54 9 39

Psychological harm: Name calling .............................. 65 19 57 56 52 33 76 39

Lying ........................................ 46 15 56 28 32 20 65 13

Stealing ..................................... 24 13 24 30 30 15 41 9

NOTE.-Total N = 108 (V = 54 and NV = 54). Children could mention several different reasons to justify their judgments, therefore, the percentages represent the percentage of children mentioning that justification category. This is an abbreviated table.



Ron A. Astor 1063

TABLE 4

VIOLENT (V) AND NONVIOLENT (NV) CHILDREN RECOGNIZING NAME CALLING OR HITTING

AS A VIOLATION OF A RULE FOR EACH PROVOCATION/RETRIBUTION STORY

STORY


RULE RECOGNITION V NV V NV V NV V NV

Hitting ...................................... 46 72 50 46 52 74 41 67 Name calling ................................. 89 74 87 85 69 74 91 80

NoTE.-Total N = 108 for each comparison (V = 54 and NV = 54).

Rule recognition against name calling (the provocation).-The majority of violent and nonviolent children recognized a specific rule prohibiting the name calling depicted in the Provocation/Retribution stories (see Table 4 in row labeled "Name calling" for percentages).

With the exception of the Parent/Child story, similar percentages of the nonviolent children mentioned rules against the wrong- ness of the name calling and the hitting (see Table 4, under "NV" for the three stories). Even so, the nonviolent group gave greater weight to the outcome of hitting in formulat- ing their judgments (see Table 1, a majority of nonviolent children judged the hitting for name calling as wrong; and Table 3, more nonviolent children mentioned the category of "physical harm"). However, the violent group was less likely to recognize a rule against hitting when the provocation of name calling was present (see Table 4 under "V" for each story).

Manipulation of Provocations Lying and stealing.--Similar patterns

were observed for hitting in response to the nonviolent moral provocations of lying and stealing (see Table 1 for percentages of children approving of hitting for "Lying" or "Stealing"). The violent children were more likely than nonviolent children to approve of hitting for lying in all four Provocation/ Retribution situations. The violent children approved more than the nonviolent children of hitting for stealing in Sibling, Parent/Par- ent, and Peer situations (see Table 1, row labeled "Stealing").4

Almost all of the children had moral justifications for the lying and stealing manipulations (see Table 2 under "Lying" and "Stealing" for percentages of children using moral reasoning). Similar to the results re- ported for the name calling provocation, the violent and nonviolent children's specific justifications tended to focus on either the provocation (lying or stealing) or the outcome (hitting). More nonviolent children focused on the physical harm caused by the hitting (see Table 3 under "Physical harm" in "Lying" and "Stealing" rows for percentages). In contrast, with the exception of the Parent/Child situation, more violent children mentioned the psychological harm caused by the provocations of "lying" and "stealing" (see Table 3 under "Psychologi- cal Harm" in "Lying" and "Stealing" rows.)

Conventional provocations.--The conventional provocations differed from the lying, stealing, and name calling manipulations because they were not moral violations. These provocations involved violating social rules (e.g., chores) or parental authority, or violating peer consensus/rules, that were unrelated to moral issues (i.e., psychological or physical harm). For example, a rule requiring children to refer to teachers by their last name versus their first name might be considered a conventional rule. In the Peer situation the violent group was more likely than the nonviolent group to approve of hitting for a conventional provocation (see Table 1 in row labeled "Rule/Con- sensus" for percentages). Overall, fewer children employed moral reasoning when

4 Age differences between the violent and nonviolent groups were found for Sibling and Peer stories. Except for the second graders in the Sibling/Lying question, the second-, fourth-, and sixth-grade violent children were more likely to approve of hitting for provocations of lying and stealing than nonviolent children, all X2(1, N = 36) > 6.42, p < .01.




the provocation was conventional (see Table 2 under "Rule/Consensus" for percentages). In the Sibling, Parent/Child, and Peer situations many of the violent and nonviolent children mentioned that hitting in response to a rule violation would disrupt "functional and social relations" in the family or society (mentioned by 87%, 44%, and 17% for the violent group, and 83%, 32%, and 20% for the nonviolent group, respectively).

Hitting for hitting and number of hits back.--Significantly more violent children than nonviolent children approved of hitting in response to a provocation of hitting in the Sibling and Peer situations (see Table 1 in row titled "Hitting" for percentages). Once again, most of the violent and nonviolent children employed moral reasoning to justify their judgments (see Table 2 under "Hit- ting" for percentages). The majority of children stated that the character depicted in the story should either "hit back the same amount" or "not hit back at all" (mentioned by 93%, 97%, 85%, and 95% of the children for each situation). In the Parent/Child situation the majority of both the violent and nonviolent children (85% and 91%, respectively) agreed that children should not hit their parents back even if the parents hit first without a good reason.

The majority of violent and nonviolent children disapproved of hitting back six times in response to a provocation of four hits (see Table 1 in row labeled "Six hits for four hits"). Moral justifications were utilized by both the violent and nonviolent groups (see Table 2 in row labeled "Six hits for four hits" for percentages). With the exception of the Parent/Child scenario, both the violent and nonviolent children frequently mentioned "fairness" (57%, 9%, 46%, and 69% in each situation for the violent group, and 43%, 9%, 43%, and 54% for the nonviolent group) and concern over the "physical welfare" (44%, 46%, 70%, and 50% in each situation for the violent group, and 50%, 44%, 63%, and 52% for the nonviolent group) as reasons for not hitting back more than four times or for not hitting back at all. These data suggest that (with the exception of Par- ent/Child relations) "hitting back" is closely associated with conceptions of fairness, justice, and moral necessity.

Discussion

The results challenge assumptions of "moral vacuousness" present in many of the literatures associated with violence and chil-

dren. Frequently it is assumed that when children approve of violence they are either not using moral thinking, acting based on irrational/nonrational impulses, or they lack the cognitive social skills to assess what behaviors are acceptable. However, in this study children unanimously condemned unprovoked violent situations based on moral reasoning rather than social rules, consensus, authority, or egocentric personal needs.

Furthermore, the children judged the unprovoked harm as "wrong" even though three of the situations occurred between family members. These findings qualify Pia- get's (1932) belief that young children perceive parent/child physical punishment as "expiatory" (p. 228). In this inquiry children reasoned that the parent must have a "good reason" or the child must first "provoke" a parent before the hitting was perceived as legitimate. Hence, it is suggested that children's moral reasoning surrounding unprovoked violence is not dependent on adult constraint, social rules, or authority but on the intrinsic harm invoked by the violent transgression.

The results from the Provocation/Retri- bution stories show that Piaget's hypotheses may be applicable to both violent and nonviolent populations in provoked situations. Piaget predicted that, with peer violence, older children will approve of an exact number of hits back to a provocation of hitting. In this study, when younger and older children approved of hitting back between peers (and siblings), they restricted their approval to reciprocal hits back based on moral reasons.

As Piaget's theory expected, the majority of children (violent and nonviolent) said that a child should not hit back a parent even

if the parent hit the child first. However, children's judgments were not based on a reverence toward adult authority or parental constraint (as expected by Piaget). Virtually all the children reasoned that the adult was wrong in initiating the hitting unfairly. Even so, the children believed it was unwise for the child to hit back based on the potential for the further "physical harm" of both par- ties and the "deterioration of family social relations." These data provide evidence that even young and violent children utilize principles of reciprocal justice and other moral justifications to condemn or support parent/child violence.

The results of the Provocation/Retribu- tion situations support findings from prior research that violent children are more in-



Ron A. Astor 1065

fluenced by and perceive provocation differently than the nonviolent children (e.g., Bandura, 1973; Coie, Dodge, Terry, & Wright, 1991; Dodge, 1980). However, this study found that violent and nonviolent children's judgments were based primarily on moral justifications. The violent and nonviolent children's approval or disapproval of violence may have been related to the focus and weight attributed to the story components of provocation and hitting. Taken together, the results presented in Tables 1, 2, 3, and 4 suggest that the violent children focused more on the immorality of moral provocations while the nonviolent children focused more on the immorality of hitting back.

In contrast with previous research on violence the results of this inquiry highlight the central role of perceived "moral provocation" in the approval of violence. When compared with moral provocations (lying, stealing, name calling, and hitting), hitting for a violation of social rules was judged negatively by both the violent and nonviolent groups. This implies that the perception of a moral violation may be a critical component for the approval of physical retribution. Furthermore, the data implies that violent and nonviolent children may ascribe different weights to various categories of moral provocations.

For example, with the exclusion of the Parent/Child situation, the overall results presented in Table 1 suggest that the nonviolent group differentiated between nonviolent moral provocations (lying, stealing, name calling) and the violent moral provocation of hitting (they approved more of hitting back to a provocation of hitting than to other nonviolent moral provocations). In contrast, the violent group did not distinguish as well between the nonviolent moral provocations and the violent moral provocation of hitting. This suggests that violent children tend to categorize both violent and nonviolent moral provocations on the basis of "physical" or "psychological" harm and assigned them similar weight. It is possible that the violent children have experienced provocations of psychological harm to be as painful and intrinsically wrong as provocations of hitting. The "hitting back" for psychological provocations may be perceived by violent children as an act of reciprocal justice.

Smetana et al. (1984) found that abused children judged transgressions entailing psychological distress more universally

wrong than neglected or nonabused children. Several other researchers have discussed the pivotal role of victimization or a victim mentality within violent children (Cairns & Cairns, 1991; Coie et al., 1991; Dodge, 1991; Eron, 1987; Olweus, 1987; Patterson, 1982). A victim orientation could explain why the violent children in this study focused more on the immorality of provocations. It is plausible that, in morally provoked situations, the violent children gave greater weight to their own sense of justice. Violent children may be less likely to recognize social rules against hitting back because they perceive hitting back as a form of justice-reciprocity not regulated by social rules. Further research needs to be conducted to clarify these questions.

An alternative explanation for the violent children's approval of hitting in response to nonviolent moral provocations ex- ists. It is possible that violent children have come to the pragmatic conclusion that hitting back is the only meaningful way of re- storing justice in their social environments. Teachers and parents may be less apt to be- lieve complaints about provocation from violent children and may not punish other children for their provocations of violent children. If these provocations go unpun- ished for long periods of time, violent children may come to the conclusion that the "adults don't care" (about reciprocity/fairness) or "don't do anything about it" (violations of morality).

Other variables such as family violence, neighborhood crime, police brutality, a visi- ble unfair distribution of wealth, ethnicity, parental unemployment, and school failure are also factors that may affect children's views of belonging to a victim subclass or group. With regards to neighborhood, ethnicity, gender, age, and economic factors the violent and nonviolent groups were identi- cal. However, knowledge of the children's personal histories in different settings would have been useful in generating hypotheses regarding the influence of multiple settings on children's reasoning. Also, the children's behavior was assessed on school grounds. It is unclear whether the children's level of school violence was similar in their families. Future studies should attempt to obtain data from both home and school settings.

Overall, relatively few age-related trends emerged regarding judgments of provoked violence. However, the cross-sectional design and the selection process probably in-




fluenced the homogeneity within the violent and nonviolent groups. Future studies should employ a longitudinal design and se- lect samples with more behavioral variability to address developmental questions.

It is hypothesized that the violent children (like the nonviolent children) are inter- preting specific social situations through larger cognitive frameworks they have developed on how the social environment treats them and how victims of injustice should respond when provoked. The violent children's perceptions may be based on realistic negative experiences with peers, parents, and teachers, and theories of justice/ fairness they construct from those transactions. More specifically, it is possible that violent children's judgments are tied to real- ity based personal theories that (1) they are victims, (2) social relations are continually unfair and hostile to them, and (3) violence is a vehicle of reciprocity and justice in their transactions with others. Consequently, al- though violent children perceive provocation cues differently than nonviolent children do, this bias may reflect cognitive conclusions drawn from past and present experiences from the environment. Coie et al. (1991), also raise similar questions about aggressive children's perceptions of social situations. Studies are needed to clarify whether or when violent children's perceptions are biased attributions or realistic as- sessments related to past and present inter- actions with the social environment.

Several implications emerge from this data. First, both approval and disapproval of violence were justified primarily by moral reasoning. Therefore, research and interventions based on an assumption that violence results from an absence of morality may be based on a false assumption. Research on violence should explore the apparent vital role of moral reasoning for the approval of violence. Future studies should focus on how violent and nonviolent children balance competing moral components, in particular, the role of nonviolent moral provocations as a criterion for allowing violence. This data may serve as a base for the development of interventions that address children's con- cerns about psychological harm and justice.

Finally, this study has several limita- tions. It is possible that the children's responses to these hypothetical situations did not reflect how they might actually respond or how they would evaluate observed situations. This should be examined in future

studies that obtain children's reasoning about real life situations (i.e., after a fight between peers on the playground). Turiel (1987) and Turiel and Smetana (1984) proposed that thought is closely associated with behavior if the presence and coordination of all three domains of reasoning (conventional, moral, and psychological) are considered. Future studies should track children and compare reasoning about violence with actual occurrences of violence similar to the vignettes. Until this type of research is conducted, the results of this study are limited to violent and nonviolent children's reasoning about hypothetical violent situations.

References

Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice- Hall.

Cairns, R. B., & Cairns, B. D. (1991). Social cognition and social networks: A developmental perspective. In D. J. Pepler & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 249-278). Hills- dale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Coie, D. J., Dodge, K. A., Terry, R., & Wright, V. (1991). The role of aggression in peer relations: An analysis of aggression episodes in boys' play groups. Child Development, 62, 812-862.

Davidson, P., Turiel, E., & Black, A. (1983). The effect of stimulus familiarity on the use of criteria and justifications in children's social reasoning. British Journal of Developmental Psychology, 1, 49-65.

Dodge, K. A. (1980). Social cognition and children's aggressive behavior. Child Develop- ment, 51, 162-172.

Dodge, K. A. (1991). The structure and function of reactive and proactive aggression. In D. J. Pepler & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 201-218). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., McClaskey, C. L., & Brown, M. M. (1986). Social competence in children. Monographs of the Society for Re- search in Child Development, 51(2, Serial No. 213).

Eron, L. D. (1987). Aggression through the ages. School Safety: Special Issue on Bullies (Mal- ibu, CA), Fall, 12-17.

Friedlander, K. (1947). The psychoanalytic ap- proach to juvenile delinquency: Theory, case studies, treatment. London: Kegan, Paul, Trench, Trubner.

Herzberger, S. D. (1983). Social cognition and the transmission of abuse. In D. Finkelhor, R. Gelles, G. Hoteling, & M. Straus (Eds.), The



Ron A. Astor 1067

dark side of families: Current family violence research. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.

Keith, C. R. (1984). Individual psychotherapy and psychoanalysis with the aggressive adolescent: A historical overview. In C. R. Keith, The aggressive adolescent: Clinical perspectives. New York: Macmillan.

Kendall, P. C., Ronan, K. R., & Epps, J. (1991). Aggression in children/adolescents: Cogni- tive-behavioral treatment perspectives. In D. J. Pepler & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 341-360). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Marascuilo, L. A., & Serlin, R. C. (1988). Statisti- cal methods for the social and behavioral sci- ences. New York: W. H. Freeman.

Novaco, R. W. (1979). The cognitive regulation of anger and stress. In P. C. Kendall & S. D. Hollon (Eds.), Cognitive behavioral interventions theory: Research and procedures. New York: Academic Press.

Nucci, L. (1981). The development of personal concepts: A domain distinction from moral or social concepts. Child Development, 52, 114- 121.

Olweus, D. (1987). Schoolyard bullying intervention. School Safety: Special Issue on Bullies (Malibu, CA), Fall, 4-11.

Owens, D. J., & Straus, M. A. (1979). The social structure of violence in childhood and approval of violence as an adult. In I. A. Hyman & J. H. Wise (Eds.), Corporal punishment in American education. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Patterson, G. R. (1982). A social learning ap- proach to family intervention. Eugene, OR: Casitilia.

Patterson, G. R., Capaldi, D., & Bank, L. (1991). An early starter model for predicting delinquency. In D. J. Pepler & K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 139-168). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Pepler, D. J., King, G., & Byrd, W. (1991). A social- cognitively based social skills training pro- gram for aggressive children. In D. J. Pepler

& K. H. Rubin (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 361- 379). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.

Piaget, J. (1932). The moral judgment of the child. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.

Ritchie, J. (1983). Corporal punishment and attitudes to violence of secondary school students. New Zealand Journal of Educational Studies, 18, 84-87.

Smetana, J. G. (1981). Preschool children's conceptions of moral and social rules. Child De- velopment, 52, 1333-1336.

Smetana, J. G., Kelly, M., & Twentyman, C. T. (1984). Abused, neglected, and maltreated children's concepts of social conventional transgressions. Child Development, 55, 277- 287.

Spivack, G., & Shure, M. B. (1974). Social adjust- ment in young children. San Francisco: Jos- sey Bass.

Straus, M., Gelles, R., & Steinmetz, S. K. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the Ameri- can family. New York: Anchor Press/Double- day.

Turiel, E. (1983). The development of social knowledge: Morality and convention. Cam- bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Turiel, E. (1987). Potential relationships between the development of social reasoning and childhood aggression. In D. H. Crowell, I. M. Evens, & C. R. O'Donnell (Eds.), Childhood aggression and violence: Sources of influence, prevention and control. New York: Plenum.

Turiel, E., & Smetana, J. (1984). Social knowledge and action: The coordination of domains. In W. M. Kurtnes & J. L. Gewirtz (Eds.), Moral- ity, moral behavior, and moral development: Basic issues in theory and research. New York: Wiley.

Weston, D., & Turiel, E. (1980). Act rule relations: Children's concepts of social rules. Develop- mental Psychology, 236, 417-424.

Widom, C. S. (1989). Does violence beget violence? A critical examination of the literature. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 3-28.



Documents

Children's Moral Reasoning about Family and Peer Violence: The Role of Provocation and Retribution