Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 1982. / Typescript. Vita. eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 87-97).

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 2005. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 106-108).

Thesis (M.A.)--David Lipscomb College. Graduate Program in Bible Studies, 1985. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 76-81).

This study aims to identify the perceptions that teachers have regarding the nonimplementation of the Alternatives to Corporal Punishment Policy (ATCP). Using a qualitative research approach, data was collected from teachers in a high school in Mdantsane that is still using corporal punishment. The main tools of data collection used were semi-structured interviews and document analysis. The findings from this study revealed a range of factors that influence teachers not to implement the alternatives to corporal punishment policy. These include: culture, religion, lack of parental involvement, violence in schools and lack of capacitation in teachers on the policy. Moreover the findings of this study revealed that if new policies are imposed on implementers there is bound to be resistance. This study therefore recommends that new policies need to be discussed and agreed upon by both the policy makers and policy implementers. The study also recommends that teachers need capacity building workshops so that they understand the need and the benefits of implementing the ATCP.

Corporal punishment continues to be a controversial topic. Many people who experienced spanking as children feel that they were not harmed by the corporal punishment and go on to believe that using corporal punishment on their children will not harm them, especially if it is administered calmly. This study looked at the attitudes of 203 parents in the context of religion using Holden's "Attitudes Toward Spanking a Child" questionnaire. The results of this study showed that parents that said religion guided their parenting were more likely to view corporal punishment positively and were more likely to believe that corporal punishment is not harmful to their children. The results also showed that calm spanking creates a positive view of corporal punishment, thus leading to a greater likelihood of denying that spanking is harmful to children.

Can punishment, a practice which involves the deliberate infliction of suffering, be justified? Retributivists and consequentialists argue that punishment can be justified, whereas abolitionists argue that it cannot. Retributivists argue that punishment is justified because wrongdoers deserve it, whereas punishment is justified for consequentialists because it is beneficial for society. A popular form of abolitionism is restorative justice, which is the view that all those affected by crime (perpetrators, victims and members of society) should be reconciled. In this thesis I argue that retributivist justifications for punishment are mistaken, and argue in favour of a consequentialist view. I also argue that consequentialism can accommodate the valuable features of restorative justice while avoiding the challenges faced by it. My arguments against retributivism will turn on a thought experiment. The experiment is designed to draw out the fundamental retributivist intuition that people who cause harm deserve to suffer harm in return, yet excludes most of the principles retributivists would use to justify the intuition. I will go on to argue that, even if the retributivist considerations did apply to the experiment, they would still not justify the claim that wrongdoers deserve to be punished. Most of the retributivist considerations are, therefore, not necessary for the intuition, and none of the considerations are sufficient for it. The retributivist considerations are, I contend, rationalisations, as the claim that wrongdoers deserve to suffer is based, not on good reasons, but on an unreliable intuition. I shall argue that the consequentialist considerations, while not being necessary, are sufficient for the claim that wrongdoers should be punished, and they should be punished, I maintain, in the interests of preventing greater harm from occurring.

This study aimed to examine previous empirical literature indicating that death penalty support contains a divide among Blacks and Whites and a gap among males and females. Previous literature has indicated that there has been a persistent racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support that has spanned over 60 years of research. Attempts to attenuate these divides have failed to fully explain why Whites are more likely than Blacks to support the death penalty and men are more likely than women to support the death penalty. This study proposes the use of empathy to control for these divides because research has indicated that those who are more empathic tend to be less punitive. Using data collected from a survey conducted on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk, a paid task website, this study attempted to attenuate the racial divide and gender gap by controlling for empathy. The sample consisted of 403 usable surveys that contained questions that measured sociodemographic characteristics, three measurements of empathy (cognitive, affective and ethnocultural), death penalty support, and attribution styles. The results indicated that there was not a racial divide or gender gap in death penalty support despite over 60 years of research indicating otherwise. Furthermore, this study failed to find a significant relationship between cognitive and affective empathy with death penalty support. This study did find a relationship between attribution styles and death penalty support as well as ethnocultural empathy with death penalty support. Individuals who scored higher on the situational attribution style were less likely to support the death penalty. Those who scored higher on the ethnocultural empathy scale were also less likely to support the death penalty. Future research should refrain from testing with Amazon’s Mechanical Turk as was not generalizable to the United States population. Research should be continued on different samples that have been shown to be more reliable than online surveys. Finally, research should be continued beyond empathy to examine what effects other controls have on the racial divide and gender gap in death penalty support.

Corporal punishment is a controversial form of discipline. To inform the debate on corporal punishment, one of the objectives of the current dissertation was to characterize parental use of this disciplinary strategy and to examine its long-term developmental outcomes. The dissertation drew on data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth (NLSCY) to understand potential social change in corporal punishment and to characterize parents who continue to use this strategy. Over a 14-year period (1994-1995 to 2008-2009), results revealed a significant decrease in the use of corporal punishment and other negative strategies (e.g., psychological aggression), as well as a significant increase in the use of positive strategies (e.g., reward/praise and explain/teach). Nevertheless, approximately 25% of Canadian parents still use corporal punishment with children aged 2–11 years; therefore, it remains an issue that merits continued attention. While several socio-demographic factors significantly distinguished parents who use corporal punishment, other more dynamic variables may be important to consider, such as parental stress and their attitudes toward corporal punishment. For the outcomes associated with corporal punishment, NLSCY data revealed that experiences of corporal punishment at 2-3 years are associated with increased externalizing behaviours at 8-9 years. Results also indicated that, within a certain disciplinary context (more hostile and punitive parenting), early corporal punishment is associated with increased externalizing behaviours at 14-15 years, increased internalizing behaviours at 8-9 and 14-15 years, and reduced prosocial behaviours at 8-9 and 14-15 years. Overall, results confirmed that corporal punishment represents a small but non-trivial risk factor for child development. The second objective of the current dissertation was to address one of the central limitations of the existing literature on corporal punishment by clarifying what parents self-label as corporal punishment. Using a sample of 338 Canadian caregivers, the study assessed the relation between responses to a general question on corporal punishment and responses to questions on specific physical disciplinary strategies. Predictors (e.g., cultural norms, attitudes toward and childhood experiences of corporal punishment) of this relation were then investigated. Results suggested that questions such as the one used in the NLSCY may reflect parental use of milder forms of corporal punishment. Results also revealed that some caregivers remain undetected by general questions on corporal punishment. Factors such as attitudes toward corporal punishment can help identify those caregivers who use physically punitive strategies but who do not endorse corporal punishment. Results from the current dissertation offers support for the anti-corporal punishment perspective and calls for the de-legitimatization of this disciplinary strategy across society.

Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2014 / gm2015 / Centre for Human Rights / LLM / Unrestricted

Moral outrage is an emotional, cognitive, and behavioral response to moral violations, resulting in a desire to punish the transgressor. Previous research has examined moral outrage toward transgressive behaviors, but no studies have examined the potential for moral outrage to be roused by another’s beliefs alone. Do people experience moral outrage at one another’s thoughts? If so, how do they punish someone who has roused their outrage but has “done nothing wrong”? In Study 1 (n = 209), I examined moral outrage reactions at people’s unacceptable beliefs on three topics (pedophilia, sexual assault, fraud) by comparing moral outrage elicited by people holding an indefensible belief (e.g., “sexual assault is no big deal”) but doing absolutely nothing to express or further that belief, versus people acting on these beliefs to various degrees (e.g., talking about it on social media, or assaulting someone themselves). Results indicated that people can become morally outraged at outrageous beliefs alone, and to a similar degree as at actual outrageous behaviors. In Study 2 (n = 327), I investigated whether the pattern would generalize from extreme beliefs most people would find outrageous to ideologically divided issues. Specifically, I examined the consequences of experiencing moral outrage when the target’s beliefs violated participants’ own moral convictions about abortion rights. Study 2 also investigated how participants punished the transgressor in a workplace setting, which is consequential and relevant to the fraught current political climate. Participants read a hypothetical male co-worker’s controversial and outrageous Facebook post, rated their feelings of moral outrage at the co-worker, and finally indicated how likely they would be to punish the co-worker directly (e.g., confrontation), indirectly (e.g., exclusion), or by avoiding him. Transgressive beliefs not only elicited more moral outrage when compared to control conditions, but transgressive beliefs elicited moral outrage to a similar degree as transgressive behaviors. Further, moral outrage at both beliefs and actions encouraged people to be more punitive toward the transgressor in direct ways (as seen in previous research), but also in indirect ways (such as social exclusion) or just by avoiding the transgressor. Finally, across both studies, I also found that participants’ intellectual humility (i.e., the degree to which a person recognizes that their beliefs and attitudes might be incorrect) predicted the intensity of their moral outrage: the intellectually humble reported overall lower levels of moral outrage than the intellectually arrogant. Implications for these findings for workplace discrimination and the study of moral outrage are discussed.