What is it about?

Corporal punishment (CP) is a risk factor for child physical abuse. The lack of culturally relevant messaging about CP can interfere with parents’ acceptance of CP alternatives. This study experimentally manipulated racial cues and message format to examine Black parents’ perceptions of message credibility, CP risk perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intent.

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Why is it important?

While tailored approaches are beginning to emerge, very few studies have examined the efficacy of corporal punishment (CP) intervention messages for increasing parents’ awareness of CP harms and effective alternatives. Our findings showed that Black parents attend to racial cues in CP intervention messages, which influence message credibility, risk perceptions, attitudes, and behavioral intent. Findings hold relevance for practitioners in the field of applied child development regarding universal informational messaging about CP harm, messaging about effective alternative parenting strategies to CP, and embedding CP messaging within interventions targeting alternative parenting practices.

Perspectives

This research demonstrates a successful collaboration between public health, child maltreatment, and communication researchers. To our knowledge, this work is among the first that attempted to integrate the child abuse literature with health communication theories concerning message effect. We hope findings can be used as an important groundwork for prospective research bridging communication theories to child abuse research to empirically test the associations between message features, audience characteristics, and persuasion outcomes.

Hue Duong
Georgia State University

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This page is a summary of: Communicating nonviolence messages: Effects of racial cues and message format on Black parents’ message credibility perceptions and behavioral change., Psychology of Violence, August 2024, American Psychological Association (APA),
DOI: 10.1037/vio0000543.
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