The impact of rate and aversiveness of noncompliance on parents' assessments of children
Abstract
Children's noncompliance with adult instructions is a frequent presenting complaint of parents referring their children for psychological treatment. Past research typically has used the percentage of adults' instructions to which children comply (rate of noncompliance) in classifying children as compliant or noncompliant; however, this measure often discriminates poorly between disordered and normal populations. This study was designed to investigate the impact of a different topographical feature of noncompliance, response aversiveness, on adults' assessments of children's behavior. Videotapes were constructed that simulated parents requesting their children to perform routine tasks or small errands. Two pairs of actors portrayed mothers and daughters in each of four experimental conditions. The conditions were formed by crossing two levels of rate (20% noncompliance; 80% noncompliance) with two levels of response aversiveness (mildly aversive; strongly aversive). The level of aversiveness in each command-response segment was established by a panel of judges and reviewed in a stimulus validation study by independent subjects, who agreed with judges in the majority of cases. For the main study, 109 parents viewed one of the experimental videotapes and completed questionnaires evaluating the child and adult. A between-subjects design was used, with each subject seeing one adult-child pair at one level of rate and aversiveness. Analyses of variance were conducted on the questionnaire responses, using a 2 (Rate of Noncompliance) $\times$ 2 (Aversiveness of Noncompliance) $\times$ 2 (Actor Pair) design. Evaluations of the children differed significantly based on the rate and aversiveness of noncompliance. The behavior of both children was considered most acceptable in the low rate mildly aversive noncompliance condition and progressively less acceptable in the low rate strongly aversive, high rate mildly aversive, and high rate strongly aversive conditions. Evaluations of the adults varied in a similar manner, despite the fact that their behaviors were standardized across conditions. These findings suggest that the topographical feature of response aversiveness may be valuable to consider in assessments of children's noncompliance.
Degree
Ph.D.
Advisors
Santogrossi, Purdue University.
Subject Area
Psychotherapy|Social psychology
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