Parent's Reaction to a Child's Violent Behavior
Group #2: Brett, Katherine Bell, Ravyn Frey, Sydney, Abigail, and Ashlee Odney*
Research Question: “How does a parent’s reaction to a child’s violent behavior influence the child’s future actions?”
Hypothesis: Since this research question could go so many different ways, we decided to simply predict that yes, a parent’s reaction to a child’s violent behavior does indeed influence a child’s future actions. [To try and predict exactly how a parent's reaction to a child's violent behavior would effect their future actions (either positively or negatively) could be one hypothesis and to try and predict exactly how the child would react to their parent's reaction (either positively or negatively) could be another.] Obviously, there would be an issue with cohort effects as well due to the fact that we would want to follow up on how the reactions would effect the children's future interactions.
Sample: A sample taken from elementary schools around the US (grades K-5/ ages 4-11) would be the targeted group. This group is appropriately representative because these ages are typically when a parent’s actions/discipline tactics are most impactful.
Research Method(s): We initially thought that we could create a way to naturalistically observe a parent’s reaction to their children’s violent behavior in a park or somewhere public but after presenting to the class and discussing the possible ethics issues involved in an observation or experiment on violence in particular, we decided that it would probably be best to rely on survey as a research method. However, this research method also leaves room for error and inaccuracy.
Research Design(s): All research methods that we discussed in class decidedly had their downfalls due to issues with ethics. Creating a simulated environment and using the research method of experimenting would mean we would have to almost promote violence or devise a plan to have violence be the outcome and that’s not ethical for a psychologist to do. Similarly, if we were to naturalistically observe, we would be obligated to report any signs of violence. If we were to use survey, we would have to generate questions to children and parents that would try to determine exactly how a parents reaction to a child’s violent behavior could potentially effect a child’s future actions and that would be incredibly difficult.
*If I didn't get your last name up here make sure you comment on this post so he has all of our names. Sorry guys! Also, please feel free to add anything I forgot or clarify any points that I missed. Thanks!
This is a really tough question to develop a study for and I think you guys did a great job. What types of questions would you ask on your survey? Where so you think there would be "room for error and inaccuracy"? Looking at this question overall, do you think it is the parents were the ones that took part in the initial violent behavior resulting in the children conducting violent behavior themselves? or is this an endless cycle of violent behaviors from parents, children acting out violently, and then parents acting violently on the child's violence?
ReplyDeleteMacKenzie,
ReplyDeleteI believe that the type of questions on our survey would be quite simple ones such as, [survey given to parent] "How would you react to your child if he/she were to push another child?" Why this leaves room for error is because the parent may have never experienced his or her child punching another kid. Therefore, he or she would simply be "guessing" what his/her reaction would be. This could easily skew the data.
When viewing the question as a whole, I think that if the child is truly "violent" it is from what you called "the endless cycle". I think that many children learn their action and reactions from what their parents do, and then they repeat it in a more public setting. Therefore, the parent first reacts to the child, the child reacts to him/her, etc.