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Children’s and Adults’ Views of Punishment as a Path to Redemption
Author(s) -
Dunlea James P.,
Heiphetz Larisa
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
child development
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.103
H-Index - 257
eISSN - 1467-8624
pISSN - 0009-3920
DOI - 10.1111/cdev.13475
Subject(s) - punishment (psychology) , psychology , developmental psychology , nice , young adult , social psychology , computer science , programming language
The current work investigated the extent to which children ( N =171 6‐ to 8‐year‐olds) and adults ( N = 94) view punishment as redemptive. In Study 1, children—but not adults—reported that “mean” individuals became “nicer” after one severe form of punishment (incarceration). Moreover, adults expected “nice” individuals’ moral character to worsen following punishment; however, we did not find that children expected such a change. Study 2 extended these findings by showing that children view “mean” individuals as becoming “nicer” following both severe (incarceration) and relatively minor (time‐out) punishments, suggesting that the pattern of results from Study 1 generalizes across punishment types. Together, these studies indicate that children—but not adults—may view punishment as a vehicle for redemption.