Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 34, Issue 2, February 2010, Pages 84-94
Child Abuse & Neglect

Who spares the rod? Religious orientation, social conformity, and child abuse potential

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2009.07.002Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective

Relatively little research has investigated the connection between religiosity and physical child abuse risk. Certain aspects, such as specific religious orientation or beliefs, and cognitive schema, such as socially conformist beliefs, may account for the connection that some have claimed increase religious parents’ abuse potential. The current study examined whether greater Extrinsic religiosity, but not Intrinsic religiosity, was associated with elevated physical abuse potential. Those who hold a literal interpretation of the Bible and attend church more frequently were also expected to evidence increased abuse risk. Additionally, the role of social conformity in mediating or moderating the association between religiosity and abuse potential was investigated.

Methods

Two hundred and seven regularly attending Christians of various denominations completed self-report measures of religiosity, social conformity, and child abuse potential.

Results

Findings indicate that Extrinsic religiosity was associated with increased physical abuse potential, with greater social conformity further moderating this association. Intrinsic religious orientation was not associated with abuse risk. Further, those who consider the Bible to be literally true were more socially conformist and evidenced greater abuse risk.

Conclusions

For those working with religious parents, the particular nature of religiosity needs to be considered when interpreting a connection between religiosity and abuse risk, as well as the potential attitudes the parent holds regarding the need for conformity. Given the complexity of religiosity, future research should explore other potential mediating and moderating factors that could further clarify its connection to physical abuse risk.

Practice implications

Clarifying how religiosity relates to child abuse risk has implications for professionals working with the vast numbers of parents for whom religion is a visible force in their daily lives. Findings from the present study suggest that professionals should consider the underlying motivation for an individual's religion as well as the importance the individual places on conformity. Religiosity per se may not be as critical to predicting physical abuse risk as selected approaches to religion or particular attitudes the religious individual assumes in their daily life.

Introduction

Encouraging declines in substantiated cases of child abuse in the US are balanced by the escalating numbers of allegations (see statistical trends, US Department of Health and Human Services [DHHS], 2006). Physical maltreatment constituted about 20% of the nearly 900,000 substantiated cases in 2004 (DHHS, 2006). Beyond such statistics, estimates of severe physical assault toward children imply the true prevalence is between 5 to 11 times greater than official reports (Straus, Hamby, Finkelhor, Moore, & Runyan, 1998). Therefore, physical child abuse remains a critical concern even considering only those cases that rise to the exacting standards of substantiation (see King, Trocme, & Thatte, 2003 for discussion).

Often physical maltreatment arises when parents inadvertently intensify their administration of physical discipline (Herrenkohl et al., 1983, Whipple and Richey, 1997). Indeed, abusive parents routinely dispense excessive, severe physical discipline toward their children (Veltkamp & Miller, 1994). Consequently, many strongly advocate that all expressions of parent-child aggression be conceptualized on a physical discipline-child abuse continuum (e.g., Graziano, 1994, Greenwald et al., 1997, Straus, 2001a, Straus, 2001b, Whipple and Richey, 1997), wherein excessive physical discipline becomes abusive further along this continuum. Child abuse potential gauges beliefs and characteristics considered predictive of a parent's risk to physically maltreat a child (Milner, 1986, Milner, 1994). Abuse potential thus can estimate a parent's risk to engage in physically aggressive responses during discipline situations that approach the maltreatment end of the discipline-abuse continuum.

Recently, the literature in this field has witnessed a growing interest in cultural nuances that influence child abuse risk (Korbin, 1997). Ecological models of child maltreatment (Belsky, 1980, Belsky, 1993) have long considered cultural factors to be distal macrosystem level qualities that could increase or decrease risk. Despite interest in cross-cultural and ethnic differences in parenting issues, religion as a cultural force has been relatively neglected in the research literature, although many have implicated religious beliefs in exacerbating child abuse risk (e.g., Capps, 1995, Greven, 1992). Accordingly, the current study focused on exploring the connection between religious beliefs and child abuse potential, wherein religion is construed as a cultural framework that may operate to impact abuse at the macrosystem level.

Religion is a pervasive, powerful force within US culture. Eighty-one percent of Americans self-identify as belonging to a religious group, primarily Christian (Kosmin, Mayer, & Keysar, 2001). Nonetheless, surprisingly little psychological research has been conducted on religiosity and parenting issues (Jenkins, 1992), although the prospect for religion to shape parenting behaviors, including physical discipline decisions, is unmistakable (Greven, 1992).

In the academic realm, religiosity has been traditionally characterized as Intrinsic or Extrinsic religiosity (Allport & Ross, 1967), specifically:

Extrinsic orientation: Persons with this orientation are disposed to use religion for their own ends …. Extrinsic values are always instrumental and utilitarian. Persons with this orientation may find religion useful in a variety of ways-to provide security and solace, sociability and distraction, status and self-justification ….

Intrinsic orientation: Persons with this orientation find their master motive in religion. Other needs, strong as they may be, are regarded as of less ultimate significance, and they are, so far as possible, brought into harmony with the religious beliefs and prescriptions (p. 434).

Allport's model is the most widely recognized in empirical research, and although occasionally individuals are typed into categorical groups, typically individuals are considered to evidence varying degrees of both Extrinsic and Intrinsic religiosity (Donahue, 1985a, Donahue, 1985b). In the present study, the concept of the two orientations as orthogonal and continuous was adopted.

In addition to this conceptualization of religious orientation, religiosity has been measured utilizing markers of religious behavior, including the frequency of church attendance (Mahoney, Pargament, Tarakeshwar, & Swank, 2001), with indications that attendance serves as an independent marker of religiosity (Hills, Francis, & Robbins, 2005). Moreover, researchers have also been traditionally interested in a literal interpretation of the Bible as a further indicator of religiosity (Brown & Annis, 1978). Although religious orientation has been represented as qualitatively continuous, church attendance and literal interpretation of the Bible have generally been categorized into very broad (for church attendance) or dichotomous (for Bible interpretation) groups.

Given the significance ascribed to religion in daily life (Bergin & Jensen, 1990), religiosity would predictably influence parents’ discipline decisions. In fact, some religious figures explicitly advocate corporal punishment (e.g., Ezzo & Ezzo's book, “Growing Kids God's Way”). Others directly implicate religion in perpetuating child abuse, underscoring the Bible's support for corporal punishment use and a child's responsibility to conform to a parent's authority (Greven, 1992). However, empirical research on religiosity rarely considers physical abuse, relying instead on corporal punishment use (Mahoney et al., 2001). Such findings indicate that Protestants who are characterized by researchers as “conservative” are more likely to spank their children (Ellison et al., 1996a, Ellison et al., 1996b). Moreover, Christian “conservatism” promotes both child obedience and physical discipline, resulting in more favorable attitudes toward corporal punishment (Grasmick et al., 1991, Mahoney et al., 2001). Similarly, greater church attendance by parents relates to a stronger emphasis on child obedience (Alwin, 1986). Those who adopt a literal interpretation of the Bible support corporal punishment use (Wiehe, 1990). Adopting a more literal interpretation of the Bible, which assumes a punitive stance toward sinners, may account for “conservative” Protestants’ holding a more authoritarian parenting style, emphasis on child obedience, and endorsement of the use of corporal punishment (Ellison and Sherkat, 1993a, Ellison and Sherkat, 1993b).

Yet religiosity also appears to impart benefits that could mitigate the potential negative influences on parenting and discipline use. For example, greater religiosity is associated with general psychological well-being (Maltby, Lewis, & Day, 1999). Moreover, religiosity is associated with positive family relationships, wherein religious mothers engage in less inconsistent parenting, less co-parenting conflict, better reported marital quality, and more frequent hugging and praising of children (Mahoney et al., 2001). Indeed, parents’ religious coping is also associated with various indices of children's well-being, predicting fewer child externalizing and internalizing behaviors (Schottenbauer, Spernak, & Hellstrom, 2007). Collectively, research typically concludes that the findings regarding the benefits and drawbacks of religiosity are mixed and inconsistent (Batson et al., 1993, Gorsuch, 1988).

Potentially such inconsistency arises because religiosity is not unidimensional. A closer examination of the literature on religiosity reveals that more Intrinsically oriented individuals evidence better mental health (Batson & Ventis, 1982), lower hostility (Masters, Lensegrav-Benson, Kircher, & Hill, 2005), and greater empathy (Watson, Hood, Morris, & Hall, 1984). This line of research implies individuals with more Intrinsic religiosity possess characteristics that would contraindicate a tendency toward parent-child aggression. In contrast, more Extrinsically oriented individuals have higher levels of interpersonal reactivity (Masters et al., 2005), more acceptance of rape (St. Lawrence & Joyner, 1991), and less altruism (Batson & Gray, 1981). Moreover, in a rare study investigating beyond corporal punishment, Dyslin and Thomsen (2005) found that those with higher Extrinsic religious orientation scores obtained significantly higher child abuse potential scores, whereas greater Intrinsic religiosity and orthodoxy were unrelated to child abuse potential. However, the study involved young college undergraduates, some aspects of religiosity appear to have been omitted, and the obtained association with Extrinsic religiosity was notably weak (Dyslin & Thomsen, 2005). Nonetheless, the available evidence suggests greater Extrinsic orientation is more likely related to abuse risk.

Additional unexplored factors may also influence the association between religiosity and child abuse risk. One possibility is that rigidity may relate to both religiosity, given the emphasis on child obedience in Christian religions (Mahoney et al., 2001), as well as child abuse potential. Social conformity involves a narrow view of conventional, normative behavior, wherein deviance from social norms is considered an unacceptable challenge to authority, consistent with the concept of authoritarianism (Feldman, 2003). Although social conformity per se has not been investigated with respect to either abuse potential or religiosity, rigidity and dogmatism has been studied. Socially conformist belief systems may represent one of the cognitive schema that parents hold when they enter parent-child interactions. Such pre-existing schema, as conceptualized in Social Information Processing theory (Milner, 2000), may operate at more proximal ecological levels to increase child abuse risk.

Early research demonstrated that individuals with a more Extrinsic religious orientation display greater rigidity and dogmatism (Hoge and Carroll, 1973, Kahoe, 1974), and religious individuals who value obedience are more likely to support corporal punishment (Ellison and Sherkat, 1993a, Ellison and Sherkat, 1993b). More recent research suggests that rigidity is associated with both Intrinsic and Extrinsic religiosity (Maltby, 1998). Rigidity is also considered a component of child abuse potential (Milner, 1994). Theoretically, abuse potential may in part relate to religiosity either because of a shared, underlying influence of social conformity (a mediation role) or alternatively, because of the extent to which a religious individual also adopts a rigid, socially conformist manner (a moderation role).

Consequently, the current study was designed to clarify connections of religious orientation and social conformity to child abuse potential. With rare exception, prior research on religiosity has largely targeted corporal punishment use rather than child abuse risk per se. This study aimed to determine whether greater affiliation with a particular religious orientation, a literal interpretation of the Bible, and greater church attendance relate to abuse potential. The study also considered whether authoritarianism, as measured by socially conformist beliefs, would mediate or moderate any association between religiosity and abuse potential, controlling for background characteristics. Greater Extrinsically oriented religiosity, rather than Intrinsically oriented religiosity, was hypothesized to correlate with increased child abuse potential. Those who subscribe to a literal interpretation of the Bible and attend church more frequently were also expected to score significantly higher on child abuse potential. Lastly, social conformity was expected to mediate or moderate the relationship between religious orientation and child abuse potential. Given that a sizeable proportion of research on religiosity has been conducted with college students and with isolated, specific denominations, the present study targeted a group who would be more representative than college students, from a wider array of Christians.

Section snippets

Participants

A total of 207 regularly attending Christians (62% female) were recruited from churches in a moderately sized Mountain West city (an additional 6 were excluded from analysis due to low church attendance, e.g., once or twice a year; 2 were eliminated due to elevated distortion indices on the Child Abuse Potential Inventory). See Table 1 for a summary of participant characteristics, including religious affiliation and frequency of church attendance. Participants’ mean age was 47.57 (SD = 14.27).

Sample descriptive statistics

Refer to Table 3 for a summary of obtained means and standard deviations of the outcome measures. Mean scores on the scales for both the RLI and ROS indicate the present sample was significantly more likely to be inclined toward Intrinsic religiosity relative to the original sample, but significantly less Extrinsically oriented (not surprising given that the Batson et al., 1993 sample involved college students). With respect to social conformity, the test author does not provide mean scores to

Discussion

The present study evaluated the role of social conformity and religious orientation, behavior, and beliefs in physical child abuse risk. A sample of 207 regularly attending Christians reported on their religious beliefs, socially conformist attitudes, and child abuse potential. Findings support a hypothesized connection between greater Extrinsic religious orientation and child abuse risk, as well as increased risk for those inclined toward more social conformity. In addition, as expected, those

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