ABSTRACT
Cluster 2: Parents who exaggerate the probability of danger to their children by relying on past contingencies (thus overprotecting and sometimes physically abusing their children)
Most child abuse occurs in the context of punishment (Holden and Zambarano 1992). Most punishment occurs when parents want to teach children who are behaving dangerously or disrespectfully to behave safely and respectfully1 (for a review of this literature, see Crittenden 2005c). This is true regardless of whether they scold, spank, or hit children hard enough to hurt them. Strangely, these explanations are accepted when there is no injury and yet rarely believed when the child is hurt. Nevertheless, outcomes do not define motivations, and the same psychological process can account for both ordinary physical punishment and injurious punishment (but see sections below for parents who attack or kill their children without apparent cause).
