Ronnie Janoff-BulmanUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst
Explanations based in attribution theory claim that strong external controls such as parental restrictive-ness and punishment undermine moral internalization. In contrast, 3 studies provide evidence thatparental 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 1found young adults’ accounts of parental restrictiveness and punishment activated their sensitivity toprohibitions and predicted a proscriptive orientation. Consistent with the greater potency of temptationsfor proscriptively oriented children, as well as past research linking shame to proscriptive morality, Study2 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 withstrong proscriptive orientations; more specifically, priming a proscriptive (versus prescriptive) orienta-tion and inducing mental suppression of “immoral” thoughts led to the most ego depletion for those withrestrictive parents. Overall, individuals who had restrictive parents had the lowest self-regulatory abilityto resist their “immoral” temptations after prohibitions were activated. In contrast to common attribu-tional explanations, these studies suggest that harsh external control by parents does not undercut moralsocialization but rather undermines individuals’ ability to resist temptation.
Traditionally, psychologists have explained immoral conduct asa failure to internalize the appropriate moral norm. In particular,explanations based in attribution theory argue that strong externalcontrols such as parental punishment undermine moral internal-ization (see review by Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; also see Lepper,1983). Here, moral demands made with threat of punishmentproduce compliance on the child’s part; however, the child doesnot attribute such compliance to a personal desire or internalmotivation but rather to the more salient external control (i.e., fearof punishment). It follows that in the absence of these externalpressures children will engage in the forbidden behavior, for theyhave not internalized the moral prohibition.
Past studies find that harsh, punitive parenting does predictchildren’s low inhibitory control (Moilanen, Shaw, Dishion, Gard-ner, & Wilson, 2010), more externalizing behaviors (Bates, Pettit,Dodge, & Ridge, 1998), lower levels of compliance (Campbell,Pierce, March, & Ewing, 1991; Crockenberg & Litman, 1990;Grusec & Goodnow, 1994; Karreman, van Tuijl, van Aken &Dekovic, 2006; Paulussen-Hoogeboom, Stams, Hermanns, &Peetsma, 2007), and engagement in antisocial behaviors in ado-
lescence and young adulthood (Loeber & Dishion, 1983; Patter-son, 1986). As Baumrind (1966) notes, recurring punishmentseems to be an “ineffective means of controlling child behavior”(p. 892).
However, harsh, punitive parenting is also associated with highlevels of psychological distress (i.e., anxiety, tension, and depres-sion; Lamborn, Mounts, Steinberg, & Dornbusch, 1991; Steinberg,Mounts, Lamborn, & Dornbusch, 1991) as well as shame (Kauf-man, 1989; Lutwak & Ferrari, 1997; Mills, 2003; Stuewig& McCloskey, 2005; Tangney & Dearing, 2002; also see reviewby Mills, 2005). Shame in particular is a moral emotion—anemotion requiring the ability to evaluate oneself as immoral, one’sdeeds as wrong. According to the attributional perspective, chil-dren of highly restrictive parents would be very unlikely to feelshame, for they have not internalized the appropriate moral norms.Yet here we have a fundamental inconsistency, for these childrenevidence a great deal of shame.
To resolve this inconsistency, we propose an alternative modelof moral socialization via restrictions and punishment, one that canaccount for children’s greater shame and greater inhibitory failures(“bad” behaviors). This new perspective regards socialization byrestrictive, punishing parenting to be a problem not of under-regulation of morality but rather of over-regulation of a specifictype of morality that, as we hope to illustrate, results in unintended,paradoxical consequences.
Socialization of Proscriptive Versus PrescriptiveOrientations
The study of morality in psychology has largely taken place inthe moral developmental literature, within the cognitive-developmental (Kohlberg, 1981, 1984; Piaget, 1965), socialization
This article was published Online First April 29, 2013.Sana Sheikh, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, University of St.
Andrews, Fife, Scotland; Ronnie Janoff-Bulman, Department of Psychol-ogy, University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
This research was supported by National Science Foundation GrantBCS-1053139 to the second author.
Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to SanaSheikh, School of Psychology and Neuroscience, South Street, Universityof St. Andrews, St. Mary’s College, Fife, Scotland KY16 9AP. E-mail:[email protected]
(Eisenberg & Miller, 1987; Kochanska, 1993; Kochanska, Coy, &Murray, 2001) and psychoanalytic traditions (Freud, 1923/1960;Klein, 1975; Sears, Whiting, Nowlis, & Sears, 1953; Sullivan,1953). Across perspectives, moral socialization is regarded as theprocess whereby an individual internalizes norms of right andwrong from relational experiences with others. Parent-child inter-actions not only influence which standards the child will internal-ize but also the nature of the child’s self-regulatory capabilities(Kagan, 1984). The ability to self-regulate then allows the child toguide his or her actions in accordance with internalized norms andevaluate him- or herself in relation to these norms.
Self-regulation theory (e.g., Carver & Scheier, 1998, 2008;Gray, 1982) posits two critical motivations, approach and avoid-ance, which guide behaviors in relation to internal end-states.Approach motivation involves activation of movement towardpositive goals, whereas avoidance involves the inhibition of move-ment toward “anti-goals” (Carver, 2006) that may lead to negativeor painful outcomes.
Paralleling these differences, Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, and col-leagues (Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, & Hepp, 2009; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010a; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010b) have distin-guished between two forms of self-regulation within the moraldomain—restricting prohibited behaviors (“should nots”) and ac-tivating positive obligations (“shoulds”). Moral prohibitions suchas “I should not harm others” require the inhibition of punishablebehaviors and entail the motivation to avoid punishing end-states,or “anti-goals” (e.g., Carver, 2006)—what we call a proscriptiveorientation. Conversely, positive obligations, such as “I shouldhelp others,” require the activation of praiseworthy behavior andentail the motivation to approach rewarding end-states—what wecall a prescriptive orientation (Janoff-Bulman et al., 2009). Thus,a proscriptive orientation engages negative internal referents (e.g.,“I should not harm others”; “I should not cheat”) and a prescrip-tive orientation engages positive internal referents (e.g., “I shouldhelp others”; “I should work hard”). The former regulates moralityby curbing negative desires and temptations to engage in wrongconduct. In contrast, the latter regulates morality by catalyzing thepositive desire to engage in right conduct.
Although we all have both self-regulatory systems to someextent, one may be dominant over the other, both may be equallydominant, or neither may be dominant (indicating the lack of moralsocialization). Regardless, consistent with the negativity bias inpsychology (e.g., Baumeister, Bratslavsky, Finkenauer, & Vohs,2001; Rozin & Royzman, 2001), Janoff-Bulman et al. (2009)provide support for the greater potency of the proscriptive systemover the prescriptive system. More specifically, moral judgmentsrelated to the proscriptive system are more condemnatory, strict,and mandatory than those related to the prescriptive system, andproscriptive immorality engenders greater blame than prescriptiveimmorality. Thus, for example, “not harming others” is moremandatory then “helping others,” and the commission of badbehavior incurs more blame than the omission of good behavior.
Kochanska and colleagues’ studies on children’s moral devel-opment (Aksan & Kochanska, 2005; Kochanska, 2002; Kochanskaet al., 2001) provide support for differentiating between these twoforms of moral self-regulation. They distinguished between“do’s,” behaviors involving activating and sustaining an activity(e.g., cleaning up one’s toys), and “don’ts,” involving prohibitionsand suppressing behaviors (e.g., not playing with an attractive, yet
forbidden toy). Kochanska et al.’s (2001) research demonstratesthat “do’s” are more challenging than “don’ts” for children at allages studied (i.e., 14, 22, 33, and 45 months), and fearfulness isassociated with “don’ts,” but not with “do’s.” The researchersconclude that their data provide “impressive evidence of substan-tial differences” between do’s and don’ts in early self-regulation.
Restrictive Parenting and the Internalization of aProscriptive Orientation
Two parenting dimensions central to socialization research areparental restrictiveness and nurturance (e.g., Baumrind, 1966,1967). Parental restrictiveness refers to the amount of monitoringand the rigidity of limits set for the child, mainly exhibited by thethreat or use of punishment and psychological and/or physicalcontrol, whereas nurturance refers to the amount of affectivewarmth expressed by the parents in parent-child interactions.
In her influential developmental research, Baumrind (1966,1967) crossed these two dimensions to distinguish authoritative,authoritarian, and permissive parenting styles (and later addedneglectful; see e.g., Maccoby & Martin, 1983). The authoritativeparent combines nurturance with restrictiveness, guiding thechild’s behavior through issue-oriented rationales and encouragingverbal give and take from the child. The permissive parent makesfew demands and is generally accepting of the child’s desires andactions. The authoritarian parent is highly restrictive and displayslittle to no warmth toward the child; she or he utilizes punitiveforce, a focus on threats, and obedience to the parental figures. Asnoted by Baumrind (1966),
The authoritarian parent attempts to shape, control, and evaluate thebehavior and attitudes of the child in accordance with a set standardof conduct . . . She values obedience as a virtue and favors punitive,forceful measures to curb self-will at points where the child’s actionsor beliefs conflict with what she thinks is right conduct (p. 890).
Rather than employ the selective use of restrictions, which is likelyto successfully keep the child from engaging in potentially dam-aging behaviors, the authoritarian parent is primarily threateningand lacks nurturance across all parent-child interactions.
Parental control and punishment focus the child on the badbehaviors she or he needs to restrain from (“should nots”), not onsocially valuable behaviors (“shoulds”) to be encouraged. Theparent restricts the child’s behavior–and this is exactly the moralfunction of proscriptions—that is, restricting immoral behavior.Overall, then, it appears that restrictive, punitive parenting doesmorally socialize, but through the regulation of actions motivatedto avoid punishment and the evaluation of morality based on howwell one successfully inhibits immoral conduct; that is, the restric-tive parent is likely to socialize a proscriptive orientation in thechild.
In the context of strong parental prohibitions and threat ofpunishment, thoughts of prohibited behaviors such as temptationswill be potent indicators of one’s immorality. And such thoughtsare likely to be particularly present in the child’s consciousness,given the feature-positive nature of self-regulatory monitoring;
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that is, it is far easier, efficient, and effective to search for thepresence rather than the absence of evidence (Klayman & Ha,1987; Newman, Wolff, & Hearst, 1980). In the case of approach-ing desired goals, individuals monitor for the presence of desiredoutcomes, whereas in the case of avoiding undesired goals, indi-viduals monitor for the presence of undesired outcomes (see Coats,Janoff-Bulman, & Alpert, 1996). The effects of feature positivemonitoring extend also to retrospective behaviors in terms ofadditive counterfactual thinking (“I should have done”) and sub-tractive counterfactual thinking (“I should not have done”) as afunction of motivation (Roese, Hur, & Pennington, 1999). Ap-proach motivation makes accessible constructs representing suc-cesses in approaching desired goals. In contrast, avoidance moti-vation makes accessible constructs representing failures to avoidthe undesired goals.
Similarly, a prescriptive orientation focuses on activating goodbehaviors, and thus feature-positive searches monitor forsuccesses–good deeds and positive intentions (the “shoulds”)—bringing to consciousness instances of good behaviors but not theirabsence. A proscriptive orientation focuses on inhibiting prohib-ited behaviors, and thus feature-positive searches monitor forfailures—thoughts and behaviors of prohibited conduct (the“should nots”), or more specifically, behavioral transgressions andtemptations to engage in such acts. Those with strong proscriptiveorientations will therefore be far more aware of their own moral“shortcomings” and will likely interpret such “hits” as indicativeof their temptation to transgress (see Förster & Liberman, 2001,and Liberman & Förster, 2000, whose motivational inferencemodel [MIMO] model is discussed below; also see Nisbett &Valins, 1987).
For the child of restrictive parents, such temptations are likely tobe particularly potent and threatening reminders of their moralshortcomings, given their association with parental harshness, dis-approval, and punishment. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, pastresearch has found that these children manifest high levels ofshame (Kaufman, 1989; Lutwak & Ferrari, 1997; Mills, 2003;Stuewig & McCloskey, 2005; Tangney & Dearing, 2002; also seereview by Mill, 2005). Both shame and guilt serve as indicators ofone’s moral failure. Yet in recent work we have found strong linksbetween shame and proscriptive morality, and between guilt andprescriptive morality (Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010a). Morespecifically, avoidance orientation was positively associated withshame-proneness, and situationally priming a proscriptive orienta-tion resulted in increased feelings of shame; in contrast, situation-ally priming a prescriptive orientation resulted in increased feel-ings of guilt. The approach basis of prescriptive morality and theavoidance basis of proscriptive morality motivate different actiontendencies for guilt versus shame, for guilt has been found tomotivate reparative actions such as apologizing, confessing, andrighting one’s wrongs, whereas shame induces a desire to hidefrom others, deny one’s actions, and escape from the situation(e.g., Lewis, 1971; Lindsay-Hartz, 1984; Tangney & Dearing,2002).
Oversensitivity and over-attention to immorality are likely tocharacterize those socialized with a strong proscriptive focus,which explains why past developmental findings link parentalrestrictiveness to an increased likelihood to experience shame.Heightened accessibility of immoral thoughts and temptations isparticularly condemning for those who are motivated to avoid
immorality. However, if children of punitive parents are morelikely to experience greater shame, why are they also more likelyto engage in prohibited conduct?
Temptations, Suppression, and Ego Depletion
A proscriptive focus on immorality and temptations, and inparticular the shame and self-condemnation this engenders, arelikely to produce a strong motivation to avoid these thoughts.Mental suppression may be a likely strategy used to avoid thoughtsof immorality. Yet considerable past research on suppression hasmade it clear that such attempts are likely to backfire.
Suppression has paradoxical effects; specifically, when individ-uals are asked not to think of a construct, they are more likely tothink of it than in the absence of the request. Researchers havedemonstrated this effect with constructs as different as color-wordsto describe paintings and stereotypes (e.g., Förster & Liberman,2001; Liberman & Förster, 2000; Macrae, Bodenhausen, & Milne,1998). Wegner, Schneider, Carter, and White (1987; see alsoWegner, 1989) first and most famously illustrated this paradoxicalphenomenon in instructing individuals not to think of a white bear.Those who received this instruction found it more difficult tosuppress white bear thoughts and also had more of these thoughtsarise in consciousness than those who were not given any suppres-sion instructions. Suppressed temptations are apt to rebound andmake an even stronger presence in consciousness, demanding evengreater efforts at suppression (Wegner, 1992, 1994).
Wegner explained this effect in terms of ironic monitoringprocesses, whereby an automatic monitor remains sensitive to thesuppressed thoughts, thereby making them accessible followingsuppression. This perspective is consistent with models of seman-tic priming, by which primed (i.e., activated) thoughts remainaccessible (see, e.g., Higgins, 1996). More recently, Liberman andFörster (2000; Förster & Liberman, 2001; also see Denzler,Förster, Liberman, & Rozenman, 2010, on post-suppressional be-havioral rebound) have proposed and found support for a motiva-tional inference model (MIMO) of post-suppressional rebound.Here people use the difficulties of suppression to infer that they aremotivated to use the construct or, in the case of temptations, toengage in the prohibited behavior. This motivational model seemsparticularly apt as a description of rebound in the case of tempta-tions: “If I find it so hard not to think these thoughts, I must reallywant to engage in these prohibited behaviors.”1
Suppression of proscribed temptations is apt to be most difficultfor proscriptively-oriented individuals, given their oversensitivityto temptations. In other words, individuals most focused on pro-hibitions are likely to be least successful at suppressing tempta-tions because they are most apt to draw inferences of immorality(i.e., “I must really want to engage in these prohibited behaviors”).According to MIMO, a stronger post-suppressional rebound en-sues, requiring ever greater efforts and inevitable failures at sup-pression. For proscriptively-oriented children of restrictive par-ents, suppression is likely to make particularly strong resourcedemands. And these demands would have important implications
1 These inferences of motivation are not necessarily explicit but arelikely to occur outside the realm of consciousness (Förster & Liberman,2001; Strack & Förster, 1998).
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303PARADOX OF PROHIBITIONS
for actual behavior, for the individual is left with fewer resourcesto actually inhibit proscribed behaviors.
The inhibition of tempting, proscribed behaviors requires self-control, yet past research has found that efforts to suppress resultin ego depletion. Baumeister and colleagues (e.g., Baumeister,Bratslavsky, Muraven, & Tice, 1998; Baumeister, Vohs, & Tice,2007) have demonstrated that engaging in self-regulation expendspsychic energy and reduces subsequent self-regulatory success.These researchers noted that mental suppression entails self-regulation and weakens future self-regulatory abilities and foundthat participants who were asked to suppress thoughts of a whitebear subsequently gave up solving a set of problem-solving tasksfaster than those who were not given any suppression instructions(Muraven, Tice, & Baumeister, 1998).
This is important because ego depletion implicates behavior, forthe self lacks the resources to restrain from desired (yet proscribed)conduct (Baumeister et al., 1998; Baumeister et al., 2007; DeWall,Baumeister, Stillwell, & Gailliot, 2007). Efforts to resist tempta-tion are likely to result in failures to curb the tempting behaviorsdue to decreased self-regulatory resources. Children of restrictiveparents do not lack a moral compass but rather are more apt tohave moral lapses and engage in immoral behavior. That is, wepropose their problem is not under-regulation and the absence ofmoral internalization. Instead, the problem is the over-regulationof proscriptive morality, which ultimately results in increased egodepletion and, more generally, failures of self-control.
Current Studies
We conducted four studies to provide initial evidence for thisalternative perspective. Here individuals with restrictive parents havea greater focus on restraining from immoral behaviors—a proscriptiveorientation; this link is tested in Study 1. Given past findings dem-onstrating greater shame as a result of restrictive parenting, we pro-pose that a proscriptive focus induces greater suppression of tempta-tions for those with restrictive parents; this prediction tested in Study2. Suppressing these painful, immoral thoughts and temptations ishypothesized to be more demanding for proscriptively oriented chil-dren of restrictive parents, inducing greater depletion of ego re-sources; this effect is tested in Studies 3A and 3B.
Study 1: Restrictive Parenting Socializes a Focus onProhibitions
Study 1 investigated the relationship between restrictive parentingstyle and strength of individuals’ proscriptive orientation. Specifi-cally, we tested the following hypothesis: There is a positive relation-ship between young adults’ accounts of their parents’ restrictivebehaviors and internalization of prohibitions but not positive obliga-tions. In this study we relied on students’ self-reports of their parents’restrictiveness and nurturance, for our primary interest was in theirexperiences as they perceived them (this issue is addressed in theGeneral Discussion). Did they view their parents as restrictive andpunitive? And if so, would such perceptions be associated with a moreproscriptive moral orientation?
Method
Participants. A total of 280 undergraduate participants (218women and 62 men) completed the study. In this sample, 196
participants identified themselves as White, 42 identified them-selves as Asian, 14 identified themselves as Latino/a, and 12identified themselves as Black.
Materials.Child Rearing Practices Report (CRPR). A modified version
of the CRPR (Rickel & Biasatti, 1982), a 40-item self-report scalemeasuring participants’ retrospective accounts of their parents’restrictive (18 items) and nurturing (22 items) behaviors wasadministered. While Rickel and Biasatti’s (1982) CRPR is in-tended to capture restrictiveness and nurturance from the parents’perspectives, we modified the items in order to assess the child’saccounts of the extent to which his or her parents were restrictiveand nurturing. The prompt read, “Using the scale below, indicatehow closely it describes your relationship with your mother (orfather) figure.” Participants responded on a 7-point scale (1 � “notat all” to 7 � “very much so”). Each item was presented for amother figure and a father figure separately, and presentation ofthe mother and father scales was counterbalanced. Restrictivenessitems assessed parental punitiveness, uses of threats, and physical/psychological control. Such statements included “Used to controlme by warning me of all the bad things that could happen to me”and “Thought that scolding and criticism would make me im-prove.” Nurturance items included “Expressed affection by hug-ging, kissing, and holding me” and “Emphasized praising me whenI was good more than punishing me when I was bad.” The scalealso asked participants to indicate whether their mother figure andfather figure were biological, adoptive, stepmother/father, or other.The CRPR has been used to assess Baumrind’s four parentingstyles using a median split (Reitman & Gross, 1997). For theanalyses in this research, however, scores on restrictiveness andnurturance were analyzed as continuous variables. Reliability foreach subscale was acceptable (�s � .85)
Moralisms Scale (Janoff-Bulman et al., 2009). The Moral-isms Scale assesses proscriptive and prescriptive moral judgments.The scale comprises 10 proscriptive and 10 prescriptive items, andeach item consists of a scenario in which the target person isdeciding whether or not to engage in a particular behavior. In thecase of proscriptive items, these are behaviors the person presum-ably should not engage in to be considered moral. Proscriptivescenarios represent behaviors involving personal temptations orbehaviors that indicate a desire or willingness to disregard socialnorms. Examples include “excessive” gambling, wearing a skimpydress to a funeral, painting a house bright pink and purple in amodest, well-kept neighborhood, and going into greater debt topurchase an expensive TV. As a specific example, the latter debtscenario is written as follows:
Sarah is getting more and more into debt with her credit card. Sherecently bought lots of expensive new clothes and costly furniture forher apartment. She could start saving her money but instead isthinking of buying a very expensive hi-definition TV and going intogreater debt.
The prescriptive scenarios involve behaviors the person presum-ably should engage in to be considered moral. For example,
While on campus, Jay is approached by a student asking if he couldvolunteer 2 hr this weekend to help with a food drive for the local survivalcenter. Jay doesn’t have plans for the weekend. Jay is deciding whetherto commit himself to helping with the food drive.
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304 SHEIKH AND JANOFF-BULMAN
For both proscriptive and prescriptive scenarios, participants areasked the extent to which the person in the scenario should orshould not engage in the behavior (1 � “feel very strongly s/heshould not” to 9 � “feel very strongly s/he should”).
Morally ambiguous scenarios are intentionally used to allow forvariation among participants’ responses. The scenarios assess re-actions to a target person’s behavior and do not involve instancesthat would typically entail punishment or threat. Moreover, thescenarios are counterbalanced in terms of behaviors about thetarget’s own behavior versus responses to others. Past research hasfound the proscriptive and prescriptive scenarios to be uniquelycorrelated with Carver and White’s (1994) measures of the Be-havioral Inhibition System (avoidance orientation) and the Behav-ioral Activation System (approach orientation), respectively(Janoff-Bulman et al., 2009).
Procedure. Given that the research participants were collegestudents (i.e., not children or adolescents living at home), we wereinterested in differences that might arise when making parentalbehavior salient or not through the ordering of the scales. Webelieved that completion of the parenting scales before the Mor-alisms Scale would make parental behaviors salient and therebyactivate parental restrictiveness or nurturance for the participants,and those with the most restrictive parents would likely be highestin proscriptive orientation. Completion of the parenting scalesfollowing the Moralisms Scale might result in far weaker associ-ations between restrictive parenting and proscriptive orientationgiven that the participants were no longer at home and the Mor-alisms Scale does not involve strong temptations likely to arise ina college sample (see Study 2). We therefore varied the order ofthe CRPR and Moralisms scales.
After signing a consent form, student participants from theUniversity of Massachusetts, Amherst, were randomly assignedeither to complete the CRPR first followed by the Moralisms Scaleor to complete the Moralisms Scale first followed by the CRPR.Lastly, they were asked to fill out a brief demographics question-naire and thanked for participating in the study.
Results and Discussion
A majority of this sample had biological mother and fatherfigures: A total of 273 participants had biological mothers, 2 hadadoptive mothers, 2 had stepmothers, and 2 replied “other,” while259 had biological fathers, 2 had adoptive fathers, 10 had stepfa-thers, and 2 replied “other.” The overall means for the motherrestrictiveness and nurturance scales were 3.98 (SD � .93) and5.42 (SD � 1.07), respectively, and those for the father restric-tiveness and nurturance scales were 3.92 (SD � 1.00) and 4.94(SD � 1.29), respectively. Mother and father restrictiveness werehighly correlated, r(277) � .58, p � .001, as were mother andfather nurturance, r(277) � .35, p � .001. We thus collapsed thescales into two parental scores (�s � .90), parental restrictivenessand parental nurturance, which had overall means of 3.95 (SD �.86) and 5.18 (SD � .96), respectively; the two scores were notcorrelated, r(206) � .04, p � ns. Means for parental restrictivenesswhen the CRPR was administered first and when the CRPR wasadministered last, 4.00 (SD � .85) and 3.86 (SD � .87), respec-tively, and means for parental nurturance, 5.18 (SD � .96) and6.00 (SD � 1.03), respectively, did not differ across the twoorders.
The mean scores for prescriptive moral judgments were calcu-lated so that higher numbers indicated stronger prescriptive orien-tation. To calculate the means scores for the proscriptive moraljudgments so that higher scores indicated stronger proscriptiveorientation, we subtracted participants’ scores from 10 (see Janoff-Bulman et al., 2009). Means for proscriptive and prescriptivemoral judgments were 6.94 (SD � 1.00) and 6.76 (SD � .79),respectively, and scores on the scales were correlated, r(206) �.28, p � .001. Given this correlation, the following analyses werealso run controlling for one form of moral judgment when lookingat the other.
To test our hypothesis and explore the effect of the order of theparenting measure, a multiple regression was conducted with pa-rental restrictiveness, parental nurturance, order manipulation (cat-egorical variable: CRPR first � 1, CRPR last � 0), parentalrestrictiveness by order interaction, parental restrictiveness bynurturance interaction, and parental restrictiveness by nurturanceby order interaction as predictor variables (see Table 1).2 Therewas no main effect of order manipulation, but there was a maineffect of parental restrictiveness on proscriptive orientation (seeTable 1). This main effect was qualified by a significant interactionbetween parental restrictiveness and order of scales. Here, parentalrestrictiveness predicted a stronger proscriptive orientation whenthe CRPR was given first compared to when it was given last.More specifically, higher accounts of parental restrictiveness sig-nificantly predicted proscriptive orientation when the CRPR wasadministered first (B � .31, � � .26, SE � .08, p � .001), but notwhen given second (B � �.11, � � �.09, SE � .13, p � ns).There was no significant main effect of parental nurturance norsignificant interactions involving parental restrictiveness and nur-turance or parental restrictiveness, nurturance, and order. Regress-ing prescriptive orientation on the same predictor variables pro-duced no significant main effects or interactions.
Overall, the findings of Study 1 suggest that restrictive parentingdoes in fact socialize morality, and that individuals are orientedtoward prohibitions as a function of their restrictive past. Morespecifically, accounts of parental restrictiveness (but not nurtur-ance) predicted a proscriptive (but not prescriptive) orientation,such that recalling one’s parents as restrictive before completingthe morality measure appeared to activate a sensitivity towardprohibitions. Although Baumrind’s (1966, 1967) parenting typol-ogy would most likely have predicted authoritarian parents tosocialize the strongest proscriptive orientation, the interaction be-tween restrictive and nurturant parenting was not significant. Ac-counts of parental restrictiveness on its own—with or withoutnurturance—predicted proscriptive judgments but not prescriptivejudgments.
The interaction between accounts of parental restrictiveness andscale order suggests a difference between the availability andaccessibility of mental constructs (Förster, Liberman, & Higgins,2005). Here, recalling past punitive interactions with their parentalfigures served to activate (i.e., make accessible) an underlying(i.e., available) sensitivity to prohibitions as a function of theextent to which participants perceived their parents to be restric-tive. For those with a sensitivity to prohibitions, proscriptive
2 All continuous variables entered in all regressions were centered priorto being added to the equations and computing the interaction terms.
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305PARADOX OF PROHIBITIONS
morality is likely to be activated by proscriptive-inducing cuessuch as threat (i.e., avoidance-based cues; see Janoff-Bulman et al.,2009). These findings provide support for the ROAR (Relevanceof a Representation) model of activation recently proposed byEitam and Higgins (2010). These researchers propose that that “notall stimulated representations are in fact activated (i.e., influencethought and action processes)” and maintain that “the degree towhich a representation is available to processes of thought andaction is a function of that representation’s motivational rele-vance” (Eitam & Higgins, 2010, p. 951). Prohibitions (i.e., pro-scriptive morality) are motivationally relevant for those who haveexperienced restrictive parenting. In this study, reading and re-sponding to punitive parenting items had no impact on thosewhose parents were low in restrictiveness and who presumablylack an available proscriptive orientation.
Although the study participants’ recall may not have beenentirely accurate, the “child’s perception of his parents’ behaviormay be more relevant to his adjustment than the actual parentalbehavior” (Schludermann & Schludermann, 1970, p. 239). Asnoted earlier, we were particularly interested in the children’sexperience of parenting—that is, the extent to which they per-ceived their upbringing as restrictive and punitive. Interestingly,the interaction between parental restrictiveness and scale orderhelps address the issue of potential bias in self-reports of social-ization, whereby recalling that one’s parents were restrictive maybe an artifact of a more general negativity (e.g., a greater respon-sivity to negative stimuli on the whole). The association betweenparental restrictiveness and proscriptive moral judgments aroseonly when the parental restrictiveness scales preceded moralityjudgments, suggesting that the findings were not due to a generalnegativity in responding. Moreover, if a negativity explanationbased in mood congruency were operating, one would likelyexpect it to be evident in judgments of both types of immorality,proscriptive as well as prescriptive and in both directions, fromparental restrictiveness to proscriptive morality and from proscrip-tive morality to parental restrictiveness.
Study 2: Restrictive Parenting and the Suppression ofImmoral Temptations
Study 1 found that recalling parents’ restrictiveness activatedparticipants’ proscriptive orientation; it appears that those withrestrictive parents had a morality sensitive to prohibitions, and thissensitivity could be primed by recalling their parents’ behaviors.
The purpose of Study 2 was to investigate the consequences ofactivating a proscriptive orientation in our alternative understand-ing of the role of restrictive parenting on children’s immoralconduct.
A greater sensitivity and attention given to prohibitions arecharacteristic of those with restrictive parents. However, a pro-scriptive orientation leads individuals to attend to the very temp-tations they are motivated to avoid. These temptations are distress-ing for proscriptively-oriented individuals (as the developmentalliterature linking restrictive parenting and shame suggests; e.g.,Mills, 2005), and we believe that they will thus employ strategiesto avoid immoral temptations and their damning implications—inparticular, suppressing these unwanted thoughts. In the secondstudy we therefore explored the following hypothesis: A proscrip-tive orientation leads to suppression of one’s own immoral temp-tations. Here we made use of the Study 1 findings regarding theactivation of proscriptive morality; the parenting scales activated aproscriptive orientation for those with restrictive parents whenadministered prior to the measure of proscriptive morality. Simi-larly, we varied the order of measures in Study 2 and assessedparenting styles either before or after a temptation scale. Wepredicted lower reports of personal temptation, indicating suppres-sion, for those with restrictive parents when the temptation mea-sure followed (rather than preceded) the parenting measure, for itis here that proscriptive morality would be activated. We expectedthese findings to occur only for one’s personal temptations suchthat participants reporting on others’ temptations would not exhibitsimilar suppression in these conditions.
Method
Participants. A total of 130 participants (94 women and 36men) who were either undergraduates or recent graduates com-pleted the study.
Materials.CRPR. As in Study 1, the same modified version of the CRPR
(Rickel & Biasatti, 1982) was used to provide a measure of youngadults’ retrospective accounts of the extent to which their parentalfigures were restrictive and nurturing.
Temptation scales. Participants filled out a scale on one’s owntemptations (self-temptation). The self-temptation measure asked
Regardless of actual behavior, to what extent do you really want toengage in each of the following behaviors? In other words, how
Table 1Unstandardized and Standardized Regression Coefficients Predicting Proscriptive Orientation
Note. F(7, 273) � 2.64, p � .01. R2 � .06, p � .01. B is the unstandardized regression coefficient. � is thestandardized regression coefficient. VIF � Variance Inflation Factor.†† p � .05. ††† p � .01.
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306 SHEIKH AND JANOFF-BULMAN
tempted are you to engage in each of following behaviors? Pleasecircle the number on the scale below from 1 (“Not at all tempted”) to7 (“Extremely tempted”).
The scale listed 17 undesirable behaviors, compiled from pretest-ing at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and includedcheating on an exam or paper, sleeping around, experimentingwith drugs, stealing, destroying property, driving too fast or reck-lessly, skipping class, and driving drunk. To determine whetheronly one’s own temptations are suppressed and not immoral stim-uli more generally, another version of the scale was developed toassess responses about others’ temptations (other-temptation). Inthis case, the prompts asked, “Regardless of actual behavior, towhat extent do you think the typical university student wouldreally want to engage in each of the following behaviors? In otherwords, how tempted is the typical student to engage in each offollowing behaviors? Please circle the number on the scale belowfrom 1 (“Not at all tempted”) to 7 (“Extremely tempted”).” Reli-abilities for the scales were acceptable (�s � .84).
Procedure. In order to keep responses from one scale frominfluencing the other, participants were randomly assigned tocomplete either the self-temptation or the other-temptation scale.Similar to Study 1, we varied the order of the measures such thatthere were two between-subject conditions: CRPR followed by thetemptation scale and the temptation scale followed by the CRPR.Participants were then asked to fill out a brief demographicsquestionnaire and thanked for participating in the study.
Results and Discussion
Parental restrictiveness and parental nurturance scores werecalculated in the same way as in Study 1 with means of 3.99 (SD �.83) and 4.80 (SD � 1.02), respectively. Scores on parental re-strictiveness and nurturance were negatively correlated, r(67) ��.41, p � .001. Parental nurturance was thus included as acovariate when looking at the predictive value of parental restric-tiveness. The mean for the self-temptation scale was 3.06 (SD �.94). The mean for the other-temptation scale was 4.83 (SD � .85).Means for parental restrictiveness when the CRPR was adminis-tered before the temptation scales and when the CRPR was ad-ministered after the temptation scales, 3.96 (SD � .95) and 4.15(SD � .93), respectively, did not significantly differ from eachother, nor did means for parental nurturance, 4.98 (SD � 1.01) and4.76 (SD � 1.25).
To test the suppression hypothesis, a multiple regression wasconducted with order of presentation (categorical variable: CRPRfirst � 1, CRPR last � 0), parental restrictiveness, parental nur-turance, and the order by parental restrictiveness interaction termas potential predictors of amount of temptation reported (see Table2). There was no main effect of parental restrictiveness or parentalnurturance on reports of temptation. Interestingly, however, asignificant interaction between order of presentation and parentalrestrictiveness emerged. As shown in Figure 1, parental restric-tiveness predicted temptation when the parenting measure wasgiven last (B � .54, SE � .20, � � .44, p � .03); those with morerestrictive parents reported greater temptations. Interestingly, how-ever, there was no significant relationship between parental restric-tiveness and self-temptation when the parenting measure wasgiven prior to the temptation measure (B � �.15, SE � .22, � ��.14, p � ns). In other words, it appears that self-temptation was
suppressed when the parenting measure was administered prior toreporting one’s temptations.
To investigate whether suppression of prohibited behaviors oc-curs among those with restrictive parents only when the self isimplicated, the same interaction analysis was conducted withother-temptation as the dependent measure (see Table 3). No maineffects of parental restrictiveness or nurturance emerged. Nor didwe find a significant interaction between order and parental re-strictiveness. However, we found a significant main effect of ordersuch that participants who completed the parenting scale firstreported greater other-temptation, regardless of their reports ofparental restrictiveness. Apparently thinking about one’s parents(regardless of degree of restrictiveness or nurturance) increasesreports of others as more tempted, thereby perhaps renderingoneself in a better light compared to others. There was no sup-pression or increase in other-temptation as a function of restrictiveparenting, suggesting that the self-temptation findings (i.e., sup-pression) are uniquely associated with restrictive parenting and theactivation of proscriptive morality.
Overall, Study 2 follows nicely from the results of Study 1:recalling the extent to which one’s parents were restrictive againlikely made available a proscriptive orientation—what one shouldnot do—and increased a desire to suppress one’s prohibited temp-tations. Indeed, when confronted with a list of immoral tempta-tions, those with restrictive parents reported the greatest tempta-tion. However, when a proscriptive orientation was activated(through reminders of their parents’ restrictiveness), these temp-tations were not reported.
At first glance, restrictive parenting seems to have a beneficialinfluence—those who recall their parents as restrictive becomehighly motivated to avoid immorality and inhibit their otherwisereported temptations. However, if this effect is in fact due tomental suppression, it is ultimately a detrimental strategy given itswell-known ironic effects. Studies 3A and 3B directly manipulateda proscriptive orientation and induced mental suppression to in-vestigate whether activating a proscriptive orientation renders sup-pression of prohibited behaviors most ego-depleting, especially forthose with restrictive parents.
Studies 3A and 3B: The Ego Depleting Effects ofProhibitions
For individuals with restrictive parents, having one’s tempta-tions brought to their attention is damning in terms of self-evalu-ation—it is shaming and highlights one’s own immorality. As
Table 2Unstandardized and Standardized Regression CoefficientsPredicting Self-Temptation
Note. F(4, 62) � 1.96, p � ns. R2 � .11, p � .06. B is the unstandardizedregression coefficient. � is the standardized regression coefficient. VIF �Variance Inflation Factor.† p � .06.
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307PARADOX OF PROHIBITIONS
Study 2 found, mental suppression of these temptations is thus alikely strategy. Given their potency, however, temptations arelikely to be more difficult to suppress for those with restrictiveparents compared to those who do not have restrictive parents anddon’t associate shame with their temptations. Due to the ironicconsequences of mental suppression, these temptations are likelyto rebound and arise in consciousness even more, painfully high-lighting one’s immoral temptations (as MIMO would suggest) andrequiring even more effort to suppress. Research has demonstratedthe ego depleting effects of engaging in mental suppression (e.g.,Baumeister et al., 1998; Baumeister et al., 2007; Muraven et al.,1998). Thus restrictive parenting may (unintentionally) increasethe likelihood of immoral conduct, because efforts to suppresspotent temptations ironically deplete the very self-control re-sources needed to resist these temptations.
Study 2 suggests that activation of a proscriptive orientationleads to suppression of immoral thoughts and temptations. Todirectly test whether suppression has detrimental consequences forproscriptively-oriented individuals, we experimentally primed aproscriptive orientation in the following experiment to investigatethe effect of a focus on prohibitions and subsequent mental sup-pression of immoral thoughts on ego depletion. Given the resultsof Studies 1 and 2, we hypothesized a moderating role of restric-tive parenting: a proscriptive prime would interact with accountsof parental restrictiveness to incur ego depletion. Parental restric-tiveness and nurturance were assessed at the end of the study andtherefore were not salient to participants. However, based on Study1 findings, we expected parental restrictiveness to be associatedwith a sensitivity (availability) to proscriptive morality, which wasexplicitly primed in this study (activation.) We therefore hypoth-esized that participants with restrictive parents who were proscrip-tively primed would show the greatest ego depleting effects. Weconducted the same experiment in Massachusetts (Study 3A) and,
with a larger sample, in the United Kingdom (Study 3B) to test ourhypothesis.
Study 3A
Method
Participants. A total of 68 undergraduate participants fromthe University of Massachusetts, Amherst, completed the study,but 12 participants (roughly half from each condition) weredropped from analyses for not following the suppression instruc-tions. This is not surprising given the relative difficulty of thesuppression task (see below and Wegner et al., 1987). A total of 56participants (45 women and 11 men) remained, of whom 38reported that they were White, seven reported that they wereAsian, six reported that they were Black, and five reported thatthey were Latino/a. There were 28 participants in each primingcondition.
Materials.CRPR. As in Studies 1 and 2, a modified version of the CRPR
(Rickel & Biasatti, 1982) was administered to assess young adults’retrospective accounts of the extent to which their parental figureswere restrictive and nurturing.
Moral priming manipulation. Participants were randomly as-signed to either a proscriptive prime or a prescriptive prime con-dition. Janoff-Bulman, Sheikh, and colleagues (Janoff-Bulman etal., 2009; Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010a) have successfully usedthis manipulation in the past to activate proscriptive versus pre-scriptive orientations. In both conditions participants were in-formed that we were interested in morality: “Each of us has ourown way of understanding right and wrong. We are interested inyour views. What comes to mind when you think about how to bemoral or not be immoral?” Participants in the prescriptive condi-tion were asked to indicate what they should do, whereas partici-pants in the proscriptive condition were asked what they shouldnot do. Each group was provided with the phrase “To be moral ornot be immoral” followed by 10 lines, each preceded by the stem“I should” (prescriptive condition) or “I should not” (proscriptivecondition) and were asked to fill in as many lines as they could.
Mental suppression induction. Three ambiguous picturesfrom prior versions of the Thematic Apperception Test pre-testedto elicit descriptions of prohibited behaviors were presented toparticipants. For example, one picture shows a young woman whoseems to be hiding in a tree and spying on another young womanbelow. These pictures were presented to participants with the
Table 3Unstandardized and Standardized Regression CoefficientsPredicting Other-Temptation
Note. F(4, 60) � 5.47, p � .001. R2 � .32, p � .001. B is the unstan-dardized regression coefficient. � is the standardized regression coeffi-cient. VIF � Variance Inflation Factor.††† p � .01.
Figure 1. Predicting goodness of fit for self-temptation as a function ofaccounts of parental restrictiveness and order of parenting scale. CRPR �Child Rearing Practices Report.
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308 SHEIKH AND JANOFF-BULMAN
following instructions: “Please describe in several sentences whatyou think is going on in the picture below in as much detail as youcan. What are the people in the picture below thinking, feeling, anddoing? Please do NOT use any words related to bad, immoral,undesirable behaviors, intentions, or outcomes (e.g., sneaky).”These instructions were adapted from Liberman and Förster(2000), who have used them successfully in the past to inducemental suppression.
Stroop task. Based on prior research (e.g., Richeson & Shel-ton, 2003), the Stroop task (Stroop, 1935) was used as a measureof ego depletion. In this task, participants were presented one at atime with stimuli in green, yellow, red, or blue. The stimuliincluded a string of Xs (e.g., Xs in green type; control trials), aname of a color presented in a congruent color (e.g., “green” ingreen type; congruent trials), or a name of a color presented in anincongruent color (e.g., “green” in yellow type; incongruent trials).They were instructed to identify the color in which the stimuluswas printed as quickly and as accurately as possible. Each stimulusappeared for 2,000 ms and then timed out. The incongruent trialsostensibly elicit interference, forcing participants to override theirnatural inclination to read the word instead and taking longer torespond compared to control and congruent trials.
Based on prior research (e.g., Richeson & Shelton, 2003;Richeson & Trawalter, 2005), all times greater than 2,000 ms wererecoded as 2,000 ms, and all times less than 200 ms were recodedas 200 ms. There were a total of 84 experimental trials, and timetaken to identify the color in which each stimulus was presentedwas recorded such that participants received a mean score forcontrol trials, incongruent trials, and congruent trials. The meanswere then log-transformed for normality,3 and the interferencescores were calculated by subtracting the log transformed mean forthe control trials from that of the incongruent trials.4 Here, Stroopinterference represents ego depletion: the larger the Stroop inter-ference score, the greater one’s ego depletion.
Procedure. After completing the proscriptive versus prescrip-tive priming manipulation, participants were presented with thethree pictures and the suppression instructions. They were thengiven the Stroop task in order to measure the ego depletion effectsof the priming manipulation. To test whether the effects of pro-scriptive orientation were moderated by dispositional proscriptivesensitivity induced by restrictive parenting, participants were thenasked to respond to the CRPR followed by a brief demographicsquestionnaire.
Results
Means for parental restrictiveness and nurturance were 4.02(SD � .68) and 5.12 (SD � .86), respectively, and the Stroopinterference mean was 138.72 ms (SD � 228.85). The scores onrestrictiveness and nurturance were negatively correlated, r(56) ��.34, p � .012, so the following analyses included parentalnurturance as a covariate.
To test for the hypothesized interaction between the proscriptiveprime and accounts of parental restrictiveness on ego depletion, amultiple regression was conducted with the moral priming condi-tions (categorical variable: proscriptive morality � 1, prescriptivemorality � 0), parental restrictiveness, nurturance, and primingcondition by parental restrictiveness as predictors of ego depletion(see Table 4). There were no main effects of parental restrictive-
ness or priming condition. Further, parental nurturance did notpredict ego depletion. However, as shown in Figure 2, a significantinteraction emerged between priming condition and parental re-strictiveness.5 In other words, the proscriptive prime caused moreego depletion compared to the prescriptive prime as a function ofparental restrictiveness. Parental restrictiveness was positively as-sociated with more ego depletion in the proscriptive primingcondition (B � .10, SE � .05, � � .49, p � .03), but there was nosignificant relationship between the two in the prescriptive condi-tion (B � �.04, SE � .05, � � �.19, p � ns; the differencebetween the standardized regression coefficients was significant,z � 2.58, p � .01).
The study’s results supported our prediction that proscriptively-primed participants with restrictive parents would show the great-est ego depleting effects. Recognizing the relatively small samplesize, and having the opportunity to conduct the study in the UnitedKingdom (a Western, English-speaking country, but a differentcontext nevertheless), we ran a replication of the same study in thisnew setting.
Study 3B
Method
Participants. A total of 88 student participants from the Uni-versity of St Andrews in Scotland, United Kingdom, completed thestudy; eight were dropped because they did not follow the sup-pression instructions. Therefore, 80 participants remained, 40 ineach priming condition: 52 women, 22 men, and six who did notidentify their gender. A total of 61 participants reported that theywere White, five reported that they were East Asian, three reportedthat they were South Asian, two reported that they were MiddleEastern, and six did not identify their ethnicity.
3 For ease of interpretation, all interference scores are presented as theuntransformed values.
4 Because reaction times for the congruent trials often reflect facilitationeffects, they were not used in the analyses (e.g., Richeson & Shelton,2003).
5 These results remained the same without parental nurturance as acovariate: Although there were no main effects of parental restrictiveness(B � .02, SE � .04, � � .08, p � ns) and priming manipulation (B � .02,SE � .05, � � .06, p � ns), a significant interaction between the twopredicted ego depletion (B � .13, SE � .07, � � .37, p � .05).
Table 4Unstandardized and Standardized Regression CoefficientsPredicting Stroop Interference in Study 3A
Note. F(4, 51) � 1.21, p � ns. R2 � .09, p � .05. B is the unstandardizedregression coefficient. � is the standardized regression coefficient. VIF �Variance Inflation Factor.� p � .05.
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309PARADOX OF PROHIBITIONS
Results
The same analyses were conducted for Study 3B as for Study3A. Means for parental restrictiveness and nurturance were 3.85(SD � .86) and 4.90 (SD � .85), respectively. The Stroop inter-ference mean was 55.16 ms (SD � 67.60).6 Parental restrictivenessand nurturance were again negatively correlated, r(80) � �.17,p � .06. To test for the hypothesized interaction between theproscriptive prime and accounts of parental restrictiveness on egodepletion, a multiple regression was conducted with the moralpriming conditions (categorical variable: proscriptive morality �1, prescriptive morality � 0), parental restrictiveness, nurturance,and priming condition by parental restrictiveness as predictors ofego depletion (see Table 5). As in Study 3A, there were no maineffects of restrictiveness or priming condition on ego depletion.Importantly, replicating Study 3A, there was a significant interac-tion between priming condition and parental restrictiveness (seeFigure 3).7 Parental restrictiveness was positively associated with
more ego depletion in the proscriptive priming condition (B � .03,SE � .02, � � .35, p � .04), but not in the prescriptive condition(B � �.03, SE � .03, � � �.17, p � ns; the difference betweenthe standardized regression coefficients was significant, z � 2.31,p � .05).
Discussion—Studies 3A and 3B
Although one might assume that a proscriptive orientationwould foster greater successful restraint of tempting thoughts andbehaviors, the results of Studies 3A and 3B suggest otherwise.Supporting our hypothesis, situational activation of a proscriptiveorientation followed by suppression of proscriptive thoughts inter-acted with parental restrictiveness to incur the most ego depletion.For college student samples with restrictive parents, a proscriptive(but not prescriptive) orientation apparently made it harder tosuppress “immoral” thoughts, incurring more rebound effects andmore frequent confrontations with one’s “bad” self, and ultimatelyresulting in the most ego-depletion, the greatest loss of self-control. Past research has found that merely engaging in mentalsuppression leads to greater ego depletion compared to not sup-pressing (e.g., Muraven et al., 1998; Trawalter & Richeson, 2005).Suppression should then have been ego depleting for people inboth conditions. However, those who did not have thoughts with
6 This mean was lower than that found in Study 3A, which could reflectdifferences in motivation or other others of the samples. The means reflectscores in milliseconds. Further, and most important, despite these meandifferences, the pattern of results for the two samples remained the same.
7 The pattern of results remained similar without parental nurturance asa covariate: Although there were no main effects of parental restrictiveness(B � .01, SE � .02, � � .05, p � ns) and priming manipulation (B � �.02,SE � .02, � � �.10, p � ns), a marginally significant interaction betweenthe two predicted ego depletion (B � .05, SE � .03, � � .33, p � .07).
Figure 2. Predicting goodness of fit for Stroop interference as a functionof accounts of parental restrictiveness and moral priming conditions (Study3A).
Figure 3. Predicting goodness of fit for Stroop Interference as a functionof accounts of parental restrictiveness and moral priming conditions (Study3B).
Table 5Unstandardized and Standardized Regression CoefficientsPredicting Stroop Interference in Study 3B
Note. F(4, 75) � 1.58, p � ns. R2 � .08, p � .04. B is the unstandardizedregression coefficient. � is the standardized regression coefficient. VIF �Variance Inflation Factor.� p � .05.
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310 SHEIKH AND JANOFF-BULMAN
such negative potency (i.e., those primed with a prescriptive ori-entation) did not suffer as much depletion; the prescriptive primedid not activate a proscriptive dispositional sensitivity associatedwith restrictive parenting.
It is important to note that individuals with restrictive parentswere not depleted across all situations, rather only when a pro-scriptive orientation was situationally activated. As also evidentin Studies 1 and 2, restrictive parenting seems to establish adispositional sensitivity: When made salient before the dependentmeasure, restrictive parenting seems to have a direct effect onoutcomes (by virtue of its salience). When a “background vari-able,” measured at the end of the study, it alerts us to a disposi-tional sensitivity to prohibitions, which may or may not be situ-ationally activated; that is, a proscriptive orientation is availablefor activation (see Eitam & Higgins, 2010). In Studies 3A and 3B,parental restrictiveness therefore interacted with the proscriptive(versus prescriptive) prime such that those most ego depleted, aswe would predict, were those with restrictive parents and primedwith proscriptive morality. Here, for those with restrictive parents,confrontations with immoral thoughts were maximally powerfuland suppression maximally difficult.
General Discussion
The most prevalent account in psychology of the role of pun-ishment on moral socialization argues that due to the externalattribution for control, children of punitive parents are less likelyto internalize norms of right and wrong. The results of these threestudies, however, suggest otherwise: restrictive, punitive parentingdoes activate a sense of morality—but this sense is mainly pro-scriptive, focusing the child on prohibitions and unwanted temp-tations and resulting in suppression and the subsequent depletionof self-regulatory resources.
Accounts of restrictive parents predicted a proscriptive orienta-tion, but not a prescriptive orientation (Study 1). In particular,recounting the degree of parental restrictiveness—the extent towhich one’s parents used punishment, threat, and physical and/orpsychological control—activated a mirroring proscriptive orienta-tion. If they were highly restrictive, a strong proscriptive orienta-tion was activated; if they were not at all restrictive, a proscriptiveorientation was not activated.
Although a likelihood to “act out” (e.g., Grusec & Goodnow,1994; Lepper, 1983; Lepper & Greene, 1975) and a greater prone-ness to shame (Tangney & Dearing, 2002) seem like contradictoryfindings from an external justification perspective, they makesense when viewed through the lens of self-regulation. Followingtheory on feature positive monitoring and mental suppression,activation of a proscriptive orientation suppressed immoral temp-tations with which they are regularly confronted (Study 2). Unfor-tunately, efforts to suppress these unwanted thoughts deplete self-regulatory resources (Studies 3A and 3B): Not only are thetemptations unwanted but they drain valuable energy, leaving oneironically less prepared to control moral lapses.
Although much of the socialization literature uses parents’ re-ports of their disciplinary style or an outside observer to predictpsychological and behavioral outcomes (Grusec & Goodnow,1994), our work explored young adults’ retrospective accounts oftheir parents’ behaviors. Individuals’ perceptions of their parents,whether real or imagined, play a key role in their orientation
toward the world. Indeed, the “objective” occurrences influencethe child’s moral perspective through the meanings accorded bythe child to those occurrences. For example, Bowlby (1978, 1981)argued that early social interactions leading to maladaptive cogni-tive models arise from children’s inferences “about their accept-ability and lovableness” from those early interactions (Brewin,Andrews, & Gotlib, 1993, p. 82). These meanings of “acceptabil-ity” and “lovableness” are then what lead to certain cognitivestyles, motivational orientations, and behavioral and psychopatho-logical patterns.
Even so, evidence on the accuracy of retrospective reports hasfound that individuals’ accounts of their childhood largely mirrorthe accounts provided by their parents, and children often remem-ber early parent-child interactions more accurately than the parents(who tend to exhibit self-serving biases; Brewin et al., 1993).Moreover, evidence argues for the temporal stability of self-reportsof past childhood events across mood and psychopathologicalstates such as depression (e.g., Brewin et al., 1993; Manian,Strauman, & Denney, 1998; Parker, 1981). Overall, in their reviewof retrospective reports of childhood, Brewin et al. (1993, p. 87)concluded, “the central features of [autobiographical] accounts arelikely to be reasonably accurate.”
In terms of moral socialization, restrictive parenting appears tosocialize an orientation toward prohibitions that interacts withone’s current environment. That is, the role of parental restrictive-ness in the studies highlights the interactional nature between theperson and the situation in moral self-regulation. In Study 1,recalling one’s parents as restrictive and threatening increased aproscriptive orientation only when participants completed the par-enting scales before responding to the proscriptive items on theMoralisms Scale. In Study 2, recalling parental restrictivenessmotivated individuals to suppress temptations. And writing downmoral statements starting with “I should not” (the proscriptiveprime) interacted with reports of parental restrictiveness to rendersuppression more difficult and predict greater amounts of egodepletion in Studies 3A and 3B. It seems as though both person-ality and situation, accessibility and activation (Eitam & Higgins,2010), are integral to understanding the consequences of parentalrestrictiveness.
Past research has in fact studied self-regulation both as a per-sonality trait and as a situational, context-driven construct. Forexample, Elliot and Thrash (2002) have argued that approach andavoidance motivations are stable temperaments that represent thefoundation of several different approaches to personality. In par-ticular, they found that measures of extraversion and neuroticism(e.g., Costa & McCrae, 1992), positive and negative emotionality(e.g., Watson & Clark, 1993), and the Behavioral ActivationSystem and the Behavioral Inhibition System (e.g., Carver &White, 1994) assess underlying approach versus avoidance per-sonality traits, which are stable temperaments carried across dif-ferent contexts. In contrast, other self-regulation researchers havefocused on the contextual aspects of self-regulation (e.g., Higgins,1998; Friedman & Förster, 2001). For example, Friedman andFörster (2001) situationally primed individuals with either ap-proach or avoidance motivation using a maze task that activates“seeking reward” or “avoiding punishment,” respectively, andhave found that this situational manipulation affects subsequentcognitive processes. An interaction between the present environ-ment and one’s personal socialization history shows how personal
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311PARADOX OF PROHIBITIONS
histories manifest themselves in the present. For example, havingrestrictive parents may not matter in everyday contexts but doesmatter when punitiveness, threat, or proscriptive morality is envi-ronmentally activated. It is important then to understand disposi-tional sensitivities, at least when taking socialization histories intoaccount (as found in these studies), not as chronically manifestingthemselves in every situation, but as arising when the environmentpulls for them. There is indeed a dynamic relationship between theperson and the situation.
Parental restrictiveness seems to socialize a focus on moralprohibitions, which then interacts with one’s environment to pro-duce emotional, evaluative, and behavioral outcomes. The social-ization of these moral psychological processes not only pertains tointerpersonal harm, justice, and fairness (as traditionally argued bythe liberal philosophic perspective; e.g., Kohlberg, 1981, 1984;Turiel, 1983, 2002), but also to behaviors such as drinking, clean-liness, and eating—conduct not typically considered in the realmof morality. In fact, cultural psychologists (e.g., Miller, Bersoff, &Harwood, 1990; Shweder, 1991; Shweder, Mahapatra, & Miller,1987; Shweder & Sullivan, 1993) have argued that the domain ofmorality especially across cultures extends past harm, rights, andjustice (also see Haidt, 2007; Haidt & Joseph, 2004). Haidt (1993),for example, has shown that offensive violations of what aretypically thought of as social conventions, such as those involvingsexual behaviors, work ethic, and cleanliness—behaviors that aredeemed harmless—often elicit strong moral reactions. Taking thisperspective into account, the measures in this project used behav-iors involving the gamut from personal conduct (i.e., overindul-gence) to interpersonal harm.
Limitations and Future Research
Certainly longitudinal research that follows children and ado-lescents over time would be optimal when investigating the impactof parenting style on children’s (im)moral thoughts and behaviors.Further, generalization to non-college participants is an importantquestion for future investigation. We might expect that the rela-tionship between restrictive parenting and temptations, and itseffect on mental suppression and ego depletion, would be leastlikely to be found in a college student sample. One could argue thatthese participants are not apt to be “delinquent” and are most likelyto have relatively nurturing parents, and thus non-college studentparticipants might show stronger relationships between restrictiveparenting, temptations, and shame—as well as greater depletingeffects of suppressing immoral thoughts.
The findings of the current studies provide initial evidence for aself-regulatory perspective on the association between restrictive,punitive parenting and children’s “antisocial” conduct. It is abeginning, and many unanswered questions remain. For example,future work ought to investigate the emotional dimension of thisphenomenon and, specifically, the dynamics between temptationsand shame. A substantial amount of research has already shownthat restrictiveness socializes a proneness to shame, and this moralemotion in particular may motivate MIMO and the suppression oftemptations. Moreover, increased shame is likely also a conse-quence of failures at suppression and subsequent ego-depletion asa recognition of proscriptive failure (see Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman,2010a), prompting greater attempts at suppression, and greater
consumption of ego resources—a sort of social cognitive “shame-spiral.”
Moreover, we know little about the role of actual behavioral(rather than mental) inhibition in resisting temptations. Physicallyrestraining from perceived wrongdoing is ego depleting in itself(see Baumeister et al., 1998) and is likely to be even more egodepleting if the temptations are themselves morally potent, result-ing in an increased likelihood of future lapses of self-regulation.This aspect of ego depletion was not the focus of this research butis an important avenue for future work.
These studies also did not focus on the socialization precursorsof a prescriptive orientation, a task for subsequent research. Inprior work (Sheikh & Janoff-Bulman, 2010b), we have proposedthat parental nurturance promotes a focus on prescriptive orienta-tion. Rather than a vigilance to avoid punishment, warmth and careare rewarding goals achieved through enacting the “shoulds.”Indeed, past socialization research has found early, secure attach-ment and parental nurturance socialize prosocial conduct and self-reliance (Grusec, Goodnow, & Cohen, 1996; for a review seeEisenberg, Spinrad, & Sadovsky, 2006; Grusec, Davidov, & Lun-dell, 2002; Hastings, Utendale, & Sullivan, 2007); these are be-haviors associated with a prescriptive orientation. In the currentstudies, we did not find any systematic evidence for the predictivevalue of parental nurturance (on the CRPR) as a prescriptiveregulator. However, the means for parental nurturance in all fourstudies were relatively high, suggesting it may difficult to uncovereffects of nurturance in a college student population because ofceiling effects.
Further Implications
Although this research focused on parental influences in moralsocialization, we expect socialization figures such as other rela-tives, teachers, and religious figures, as well as broader systems ofsocialization such as educational and religious systems, to influ-ence individuals’ regulatory orientation as well. Punitive social-ization agents are also likely to orient individuals toward prohibi-tions, making them more aware of temptations and more likely tofeel shame. This may work toward the socialization agent’s ben-efit: For example, an authoritarian social structure may orientpeople toward their own immorality, occupying themselves withcurbing their own temptations and shame, valuing inhibition andthus perpetuating the existing, proscriptive social order. Whilethese rigid, authoritarian ideologies are likely to render temptationsunmanageable, a multidimensional belief system involving bothproscriptions and prescriptions may promote successful self-regulation instead (Koole, McCullough, Kuhl, & Roelofsma,2010).
A strong sensitivity toward one’s own immoral temptations mayalso result in a defensive, punitive orientation toward others, aphenomenon known as “reaction formation.” Taking an overlycondemnatory stance toward other people’s behaviors may serveas a defensive strategy to mitigate the distress and shame associ-ated with one’s own temptations. Moral emotions researchers (e.g.,Lewis, 1971; Tangney, Wagner, Fletcher, & Gramzow, 1992;Tangney et al., 1996; Thomaes, Stegge, & Olthof, 2010) have alsonoted that the threat of immorality and pain associated with shamecan also be externalized into severe rage and aggression towardothers; here, hostility toward others is in part motivated by atten-
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312 SHEIKH AND JANOFF-BULMAN
uating one’s own shame and blaming others for one’s pain. Bothof these processes may lead one’s own perceived immorality toincrease a (hypocritical) harsh and punitive stance toward othersfor their supposed immorality.
Although appropriate uses of restrictiveness and punishmentmay certainly guard against harmful, even potentially dangerousbehaviors, punitiveness as the primary mode of discipline andcommunication from parent to child produces a motivational ori-entation with ultimately detrimental consequences. Restrictive par-enting is not wholly ineffective in socializing morality but instillsa particular form of moral orientation: a focus on prohibitions. Thisperspective outlines an alternative and comprehensive route tomoral lapses. Individuals are not reacting against external de-mands. Rather, their attempts to be moral are what paradoxicallymake them more susceptible to actions they themselves condemn.
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Received October 2, 2011Revision received October 18, 2012
