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When Victims Don't Cry: Children's Understandings of Victimization, Compliance, and Subversion
Author(s) -
Shaw Leigh A,
Wainryb Cecilia
Publication year - 2006
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/j.1467-8624.2006.00918.x
Subject(s) - subversion , psychology , compliance (psychology) , developmental psychology , resistance (ecology) , social psychology , human factors and ergonomics , injury prevention , prosocial behavior , poison control , medical emergency , medicine , ecology , politics , political science , law , biology
How do children understand situations in which the targets of moral transgressions do not complain about the way they are treated? One –hundred and twenty participants aged 5, 7, 10, 13, and 16 years were interviewed about hypothetical situations in which one child (“transgressor”) made an apparently unfair demand of another child (“victim”), who then responded by either resisting, complying, or subverting. In general, 5‐year‐olds judged compliance positively and resistance negatively and 7‐ to 16‐year‐olds judged resistance positively and compliance negatively; all but 16‐year‐olds judged subversion negatively. Most participants judged the transgressor's actions negatively, regardless of how the victim had responded. The findings are discussed in terms of their implications for children's developing understandings of victimization.