Paradoxical consequences of prohibitions
Date
08/2013Keywords
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Abstract
Explanations based in attribution theory claim that strong external controls such as parental restrictiveness and punishment undermine moral internalization. In contrast, three studies provide evidence that parental punishment does socialize morality, but of a particular sort: a morality focused on prohibitions (i.e., proscriptive orientation), rather than positive obligations (i.e., prescriptive orientation). Study 1 found young adults’ accounts of parental restrictiveness and punishment activated their sensitivity to prohibitions and predicted a proscriptive orientation. Consistent with the greater potency of temptations for proscriptively-oriented children, as well as past research linking shame to proscriptive morality, Study 2 found that restrictive parenting was also associated with greater suppression of temptations. Finally, Studies 3a and 3b found that suppressing these immoral thoughts is paradoxically harder for those with strong proscriptive orientations; more specifically, priming a proscriptive (versus prescriptive) orientation and inducing mental suppression of “immoral” thoughts led to the most ego depletion for those with restrictive parents. Overall, individuals who had restrictive parents had the lowest self-regulatory ability to resist their “immoral” temptations after prohibitions were activated. In contrast to common attributional explanations, these studies suggest that harsh external control by parents does not undercut moral socialization, but rather undermines individuals’ ability to resist temptation.
Citation
Sheikh , S & Janoff-Bulman , R 2013 , ' Paradoxical consequences of prohibitions ' , Journal of Personality and Social Psychology , vol. 105 , no. 2 , pp. 301-315 . https://doi.org/10.1037/a0032278
Publication
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0022-3514Type
Journal article
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This is the author's version of this article. This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.
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