Permissiveness, Permission, and Aggression: The Effect of Adult Presence or Absence on Aggression in Children's Play

Abstract

It has become conventional to think of an adult's permissiveness toward a child as representing neutralization of adult control. By behaving permissively (acceptantly, nonjudgmentally, etc.), the adult is thought to be freeing the child from his presence and authority, and in some loose sense to be permitting the child to behave as he would in the absence of any adult. Such thinking has emphasized the punitive or threatening aspects of adultchild relations. Adult permissiveness is seen as a way of reducing the child's fear of adult punishment and thus as a way of encouraging him to express in behavior those impulses whose expression he knows to be normally unacceptable to adults. Such thinking about permissiveness has been the basis for explanations which have been advanced for a frequent finding about aggression in doll play. It has repeatedly been observed that aggression in doll play increases over time or from session to session (i, 2, 5, 6, 8, 9). This finding has typically been explained by reference to the adult experimenter's acceptant and nonjudgmental interaction with the child and the fear-reducing effect this interaction has. For example, in discussing recent evidence confirming the finding, Levin and Sears state that