Youths’ Perceptions of Corporal Punishment, Parental Acceptance, and Psychological Adjustment in a Turkish Metropolis

This study explored relations among corporal punishment, perceived parental acceptance, and the psychological adjustment of 427 Turkish youths between the ages of 10 to 18. Participants responded in school to the child versions of the Physical Punishment Questionnaire, Parental Acceptance-Rejection Questionnaire, Personality Assessment Questionnaire, and a demographic questionnaire. Results of multiple regression analyses showed that youths’ perceptions of both maternal and paternal acceptance made independent and significant contributions to variations in youths’ self-reported psychological adjustment. Regression analyses also showed that neither maternal nor paternal punishment by themselves made significant contributions to variations in youths’ adjustment when the influence of perceived maternal and paternal acceptance was controlled. Thus, we concluded that apparent relations between parental punishment and youths’ psychological adjustment were almost completely mediated by youths’ perceptions of parental acceptance. Neither youths’ gender nor age was associated with either perceived parental acceptance or punishment.

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