Social Class, Parental Punishment for Aggression, and Child Aggression1

According to behavior theory (5, Io), punishment for aggression should result in the learning of anxiety about its consequences and therefore have an inhibiting effect on the expression of aggression. Thus, it would be predicted that increased punishment for aggression will lead to reduced frequency of aggressive behavior, especially when the situations in which the behavior is punished and later evoked are similar. While carefully controlled laboratory studies with animals (29) and preschoolers (17) and questionnaire studies of college students (ii) have in general confirmed this view, survey studies of the childrearing antecedents of aggressive behavior have on the whole yielded opposite findings. It has been monotonously reported in the latter studies (e.g., Bandura and Walters 3; Glueck and Glueck 15; Sears, Maccoby, and Levin 28) that increased punishment for aggression by socializing agents is related to increased aggression on the part of the child. These findings have been called into question because usually (except for Bandura and Walters' study with adolescents) the same informant is utilized in both antecedent and consequent measures (14). Indeed