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Developmental Psychology

1974,

V o l . 10,

No. 5,

772-778

Children's Physical Attractiveness and Sex as

Determinants

of A dult Punitiveness

1

KAREN K. DION

2

University

ofToronto, O ntario, Can ada

A ch i ld 's physical at tractiveness and sex were investigated as poten tial e l ici tors of

dif ferent ia l adu l t pun i t iveness .In E xp e r ime n t 1,wom en v iewed a videotaped inter-

action between the experimenter and a child who was made to

appear

either

physical ly at t ract ive o r unat t ract ive . Subsequent ly , sub jects moni to red what was

p r e s u mab ly

th e

ch i ld ' s pe r fo rmance

o n a

p ic tu re -match ing task

an d

ad min i s t e r e d

penalt ies to the child for incorrect responses.T he specif ic penalty involved taking

one to f ive

pennies away from

th e

chi ld

fo r

each error. Wo me n w e r e f o u n d

to

behave m ore len ien t ly towards an a t t ract ive boy than toward s e i the r an a t t ract ive

girl or an unattractive boy.These results were interpreted in the context of a cross-

sex

len iencyeffect mediated by a chi ld 's physical at tractiveness . A second experi-

m e n twasthenconducted usingthesame procedurewithmen as subjects.Neithera

ch i ld ' s a t tract iveness nor sex in f luenced me n ' s a dm in is t ra t io n o f penal t i e s to the

c h i l d . It was suggested tha t these data reflected d ifferen ces in men 's

a n d ' w o m e n ' s

orientations toward children's task behavior.

What is the chi ld 's contr ibution to the

social izat ion

process? U nti l recently , this

quest ion received relativ ely little theore tical

a t t en t ion . Researchers in the area of

socialization have been primarily con-

cerned with assess ing adult ' seffects on chil-

d ren ' s behav ior .

Yet as

Bell(1968, 1971)

has

persuasively argued, this unidire ct ional

m o d e l

may prov ide an inadequate under-

standing of

socialization.

For example, re-

cent

studies indicate tha t certain char-

acteristics of the chi ld m ay serve ase liciting

s t imul i

for var iou s adult beh aviors (Osofsky

& O 'Co nn ell, 1972; Y arrow , 1965; Y arr ow ,

Waxier ,

&

Scott, 1971). Pursuing thistopic

fur ther ,

th e present author invest igated

w he the r

a chi ld 's physical att ract iveness and

sex

inf luence adul t s ' pun i t iveness .

Physical attractiveness is a very salient

personal characteristic which systematically

inf luences

in ferences m ade about

an in-

d i v i dua l ' s behaviora l d i spos i t ions (Dion ,

1

This

research was suppor ted by Canada

Counci l

G r a n t s S71-0923 and

S72-1125

to the

au tho r . Special

t hanks are due Kenneth

L.

Dion for his

thought ful

comments on ear l ie r

draf ts

of this article.

2

Reques t s

for repr in ts should be

sent

to

K a r e n

K.

Dion, Department

of

Psychology, Scarborough

College, Univers i ty of Toronto, 1265 Mi l i tary Trial,

West

Hi l l ,

On tar io

M I C

1A 4C a n a d a .

1973; Dion, Berscheid, & Walster, 1972;

Mil ler ,

1970).R ecent research ind icates tha t

a child's attractiveness affectsadults'evalua-

t i ons of him in s i tua t ions in tegra lt osociali-

zation. Dion (1972) foundthat women at-

t r ibu ted more favorab le personal char-

acteristics

to

attract ive than

to

unat t rac t ive

children who al legedly committed the same

ser iously

h a r m f u l transgress ion. Also,

Clifford and

Walster

(1973) dem onstrated

that ele m entary school teachers rated at trac-

tive

ch i ld ren

as

having greater intel lectual

potent ia l than their unattract ive counter-

par t s , desp ite ide n t ica l in fo rm at ion about

both

groups

of chi ldren. Thus a child's at-

t ract iveness appears to inf luence adults ' a t-

t i tudes

an d

a t t r i bu t i ons abou t h im .

H o w e v e r , do adults actually behave

differently towards at tract ive

and

una t t r ac -

tive children? D o they administer differen-

t ial sanc t i ons

to

good- looking versus

homely chi ldren?

These issues were explore d

in the presen t s tudy .

A n o t h e r personal characteris t ic , ach i ld ' s

sex, has evoked

considerable research

in -

terest. A pervas ive t rend which occurs in

var ious s tud ies involv ing adult-chi ld inter-

action is the

presence

of

cross-sex effects (cf.

Mischel , 1970). Specifically, a n u m b e rof in-

772


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D E T E R M I N A N T S

O F

A D U L T P U N I T I V E N E S S

77

vest igat ions have found that chi ldren a re

more

responsive to inf luenceby

opposite-

versus

same-sex

adults in areas such as

susceptibili ty to social re inforcem ent

(Gewirtz,

1954;

Gewirtz

Baer, 1958;

Patterson,Li t tman, H inse y, 1964; Steven-

son, 1961; Stevenson

&

Knights, 1962)

and

resistance

to

temptation (Burton,

Al l in-

sm i t h ,

&

Maccoby, 1966).

Inthese

investiga-

t ions , th e child's behavior w as observed

either

following,

or contingent on,

inter-

action w ith an adu lt. I t is therefore difficult

to

assess

the rela t ive contr ibution of the

adult's versus th e child's characteristics

whenone at tempts to explainwhy thecross-

sex

effects

occurred. Conceivably, adults

m ay inadver tent ly behave in a m ore nu r -

t u r a n t m a n n e r

towards

chi ldren of the op-

posite

sex (cf . Stevenson, 1965). In support

of

this possibility, Rothbart

and Maccoby

(1966) f ound that parents

exhibited

more

permiss ive behavior towards opposite-sex

c h i ld r en .

Thus

further inves t igat ion

of

adults'

behavior

as afunction of achild'ssex

appears frui t ful , s ince di f ferent ia ltreatment

by

adults

may be an

i m p o r t a n t mediator

of

cross-sex ef fects obta ined with chi ldren.

Accordingly , in the present s tudy, the

potential

influence

of

both

a

child'sphysical

attractiveness and sex on adults' behavior

w as investigated in a s i tuat ion in which th e

subjects

administered

penalties

to a child for

incor rec t ta sk per formance . Young women

were chosen as subjects since females

typically are the primary socializers of ele-

mentary-age chi ldren. Considering

th e

research discussed earlier,

women

were ex-

pected

to behave

lesspun i t ive ly

towards at-

tractive than toward un attract ive chi ldren.

It was

alsopossible

to

examine whether sub-

jectswould

treat

anopposite-sex child

more

leniently than a

same-sex

child. Finally, the

design

of

.the s tudy permit ted assessing

any

possible

interactio n effects of a

child's

physical

attractiveness

and sex on

adults'

puni t iveness .

E X P E R I M E N T

1

Method

t ive-Unat t ract ive X M ale-Female) fac tor ia l des ign.

Subjects first vieweda n interaction between th e experi-

m e nte r

and the

chi ld,

ostensibly via liveclosed-circuit

television.

Actually, videotapes had been prepared in

which th e

child 's phys ical at tract iveness

had

been

m anipu la t e d

so he (or she) appeared to be either good

looking or

homely . After v iewing

th e

interaction, sub-

jects

were asked

to

m o n i t o r

t he

chi ld ' s performance

on

a task and to ad m inis te r a penal ty whenever he

answered incorrectly. The penalty consisted of one to

five pennies to be

w i th d ra w n from

th e

child

for

each

er ro r .

All

subjects received

th e

same p rede t e rmined

se -

quenceof15correctand

15

incorrectresponses. Finally,

subjects responded

to a

que s t ionn aire des igned

to

assess

their evaluat ion

of the

chi ld ' s performance

and

their

ow n at t i tudes towards

the

chi ld .

Subjects

The subjects were 52

white females

enrol led in in-

t roductory psychology. They w ere told that the study

concerned children's learning and that children from

local

elementary schools were tak ing par t

in the ex-

pe r i men ta l

sessions

wi t h

them.

The

data from

12

sub-

jects were excluded fo r various reasons.

3

Thus,

there

were

40 subjects in

a l l 1 0subjects

i n

each cell

of the 2

X

2des ign.

Manipulation of Physical Attractiveness

Tw o

white

8-year-old

children,

one boy and one

girl,

por t rayed

the

s t imulus chi ldren. Since both chi ldren

were attractive, li t t le modif icat ion of

the i r

appearance

was

necessary

for the

attractive

condit ion. In the un-

at t ract ive cond i t ion , va r ious makeup t echn iques and

modif icat ion

of hair s tyle were employed to m a k e th e

children

appear

homely. For example, th e girl's hair

w asparted in the mi d d l eand

pulled

back severely in toa

pony tai l .

H er

ears pro t ruded somewhat

due to

smal l

cardboard inser t s p laced b ehin d them

an d

covered

by

her ha i r . Appro p r ia t e make up made h er eyes appear

closer-set than normal.

S imi la r modi f i ca t ions

were un-

der taken with

th e

m ale child. Each child wore

th e

same

clothes for the tapes used in the attractive and un-

at t ract ive

cond i t ions . M oreover,

on

videotape, neither

child

appeared to be wear ing m akeu p.

Videotaped Interaction Sequence

When the tape began,t hechildw asseated

facing

the

camera playing wi th an Etch-a-Sketch game. The ex-

per imenter

moved out of the camera range for 90 sec-

onds

on the

pretense

of

adjust ing

th e

apparatus. This

gave the

subject

an

oppor tun i ty

to

notice

the

chi ld ' s

facial appearance. Subsequent ly ,

the

child

sat

down

at

the apparatus with h is back to the camera and went

Overview

The child'sphysical attractiveness and sexwere the

i n d epen d en t

var iables manipula ted in a 2 X 2 (Attrac-

3

T he

specific

reasons were

as

follows: suspicion

(2

subjects), failure

to

follow instructions resulting

in

miss-

in g

data on the major dependent measure (6), race dis-

crepant

from

tha t of s t i mulus chi ldren (1) , and

procedural errors (3). This

attrition was

random across

exper imenta l

condit ions .


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77

K A R E N K . D I O N

over the t ask inst ruc t ionswi th the exper imenter , who

explained

to the

child

thathe

would

be

able

to win

pen-

nies

depending on how well he did on the picture-

m a t c h i n g task. Poin t ing

t o a

frequency counter located

next to the

appara tus ,

th e

experimenter stated that

it

showed how many pennies th e child had to

star t

with

(100);

w h e n e v e r

he

answered incor rec t ly

he

would lose

something.

The

child

was

toldthat

he

could

keepall of

the pen nies tha t wereleft at the end of the session. D ur-

ing this

in terac t ion , th e child clearly expressed his in-

terest in the pen nies and his desire to keep them . The ex-

pe r im e n te r then re turned to the subjec t ' s room.

There were

f our

tapes, cor responding

to the four ex -

perimental conditions.

Except

for the physical

attrac-

tiveness m a n ip u l a t io n , every effort was made to keep

th e rest of the tape ident ical across condit ions. Final ly,

the tapes help ed to control for other variables which

m i g h t conceivably

affect

an a d u l t ' s beh a v io r t owa rd s a

chi ld

in a

task situ at io n. These variables included

the

chi ld 's comprehension

of the

task,

h is

fam il ia r i ty wi th

th e

appara tus ,

and his

interest

in the

reward associated

with th e

task. This last variable

w as

par t icula r ly impor-

tan t s ince

it

ind ica ted

the

pen n ie s

had

incent ive va lue

for

th e

chi ld ,

t h us c on t ro l l in gfor perceived valueof the

reward

which subjec t s wi thdrew

from th e

ch i ld .

Procedure

Subjec t s were randomly ass igned to exper imenta l

cond i t i ons . They were seen

indiv idual ly

by a white 22-

year-old female

experimenter

who was

average

looking

in

terms of physic al appearan ce. Sh e exp laine d that the

s tudy

concerned adults ' ev alua t ion s of children 's task

per formance .

Pres um ably , l i t t le prio r research in this

area existed in spite of the fact that adul ts who do not

k n o w

a

chi ld

well

(new teachers, etc . ) must often

evaluateh is

performance.

The

subject

w astold

that

she

w ould

be

asked

to

mon i t o r

a

ch i ld ' s per formance

on a

s tand ard pic ture-m atch ing task and admin is ter

penal t ie s for

incorrect responses.

The

chi ld

w as

allegedly in the ad join ing room. The exper imenter

fu r the r

ex plained th at a series of relays aut om atic al ly

t ransmi t tedthe

child's

correct and incorrect answersto

a

control panel

in f ron t of the

subject .

The

onset

of a

green l ight signal led

a

correct response;

the red

l igh t

in-

dicated an incorrect one. B oth l igh ts were clearly iden-

tified with the labels

correct

an d

incorrect,

respectively.

Whe ne ve r

the child answered incorrect ly (as in-

dicated

by the

onset

of the red

light),

the subject was to

penal ize

th e

child from

one to five

pennies

by

pressing

one of five

corresponding switches

on the

control panel

in her

room. This pena l ty

w as

presumably subt rac ted

cumula t ive ly from the total n u m b e rof penn ies the child

started w i th . Thus, the freq uen cy counter in the child 's

room

ostensibly

provided

a

cont inuous record

of the

a m o u n t

of money remain ing as the t r ia l s

progressed.

(Actua l ly , the subjects' responses were recorded on a

even t

recorder

in the

adjoin ing room) .

The

subject

w as

told

tha t she should take away a t l east one penny for

each error, since

the

ch i ld

had

been told there

was a

penal ty

for mistakes. H ow

much money

she

took away

beyon d that , if any , was for her to decide. To m ini m ize

the

subject 's ex pectat ion tha t most ad ul ts genera l ly

applied the

m i n i m a l

penalty, the expe r imen t e r

fur the r

explained that people differed as to the penal t ies they

felt were

appropriate .

Presumably, some individuals

ad -

minis te red larger penal t ies on the average, while others

took away smal le r am ounts .

It

is impor tan t to note tha t when the exper imenter

delivered

the ins truct ions described so far , she was un-

aware of the subject 's assigned experimental condit ion.

A t

this

point, the experim enter casually mentioned

that

the subjec t mightliketo observe the child dur ing a final

review

of the t ask inst ruc t ions. The exper imenter then

entered

th e

adjoin ing room

and

t u rn ed

on the

video-

tape described previously.Thesubject observed th e tape

on a moni tor in her room,

believing

it to be an ongoing

interaction transmitted

via

closed-circuit

television.

W h e n th e tape w asover, she was told that th e mon i t o r

in

h er

room

and the

camera

in the

child 's room would

be turn ed off on the grou nds that child ren become ner-

vous if observed w hile they perform ed a task . The ex-

pe r im e n te r

then han ded the subject an envelope whic h

contained information al legedly provided

by the

child's

school . This background sheet described th e child as a

nat ive-born eight-year-old whose father was a depart-

men t ma n a ge r in a retail store and whose mother was

a housew ife . In add i t ion , a smal l photograph of the

child

w as

a ttached . Apar t f rom

the

photograph,

th e

background

information

w as

constant

across

experi-

mental condit ions, thus control l ing for factors such

as

perceived

socioeconomic

background, age ,

an d

nat iona l i ty , any of

which might conceivably

affect th e

subjec t ' s behavior towards the ch i ld . After e x a m i n i n g

this

sheet,

th e

subject

w as left

a lone dur ing

th e

t i m e

s he

administered penal t ies

to the

child.

The

experimenter 's

absence du r ing th is per iod thus m in imize d dem and cues

which

might be associated with her presence.

Each subject received the same predetermined se-

quen c e of 15correct and 15 incorrect t r ials, control led

by the exper imenter f rom a th i rd

r o o m .

No more than

tw oerrors

occurred

in a

row,

andtherew ere f iveerrors

wi t h in

each block of 10 tria ls. Since a child's respons e

latencies in a task situat io n would prob ably vary, the in-

tervals between t r ials varied between

10 and 15

sec-

onds. This t im ing sequence was ran do m ly determined in

advance .

When the

task phase

was

over,

the subject

completed

a

postexperimental quest ionnaire which consisted of 25-

poin t sca les cont a in in g anchor words

or

phrases

at

each

end and a neut r a l m idpo in t . The i t ems

fell

into three

broad categories.

The first

category included items

which

assessed

th e

subject 's evaluat ion

of the

ch i ld ' s

performance,

task

motivat ion, and task abilities.Task

motivat ion was measured by the fol low ing i tems: works

care fu l ly-works

carelessly; persistent-dist ract ible;

in -

dust r ious- lazy; pays a t t en t ion

to work-does not pay

at ten t ion . The fol low ing dim ensio ns assessed task

abili ty: ski l l ful -not

skillful; above average in in-

telligence-below average;

slow

learner-fast learner; and

competen t - incompeten t . In the second group of i t ems,

the subject rated her own behavior and at t i tudes toward

the child as

follows:

str ict-lenient; incl ined to penal ize

heavi ly-pena l ize

l ight ly;

d is l iked ch i ld - l iked ch i ld ;

and

expected fe w errors-expected m an y errors . Fin al ly , a

third group

of

items included

th e

manipulat ion check

fo r

at t ract iveness,

an

est imat ion

of the

difficulty

of the

task, and rat ings of the child 's general personal ity,

(pleasan t -unpleasan t ; f r i end ly-unf r i end ly;

cooperat ive-


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D E T E R M I N A N T S

O F A D U L T P U N 1 T I V E N E S S

775

uncooperat ive ) . These last items were embedded

in

various sections of the questionnaire. After th e subject

h ad

responded

to the

ques t ionnaire i tems,

the

exper i-

men t e r interv iewed her , following a series ofstructured

quest ions

designed to probe for suspicion. The ex-

per imenterth en discussed thepurposeof thes tudy with

th e subject, including a careful explanation of the

deception involved

and the

reasons

for

this par t icula r

procedure.

Results

Manipulation

Check

A 2 X 2

analysis

of

variance performed

on

subjects' ratings of the child ' s physical at-

tractiveness yielded only a signif icant main

effect

fo r

at t ract iveness

(F =

23.55,

d f

=

1/36, p

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