Kid's Corporal Punishment - a Risk to Mental Health

[Paidiske]

Yes it is and thats what the evidence shows. Do you want me to show the evdience again.

Not really. Your claims haven't been convincing up until now, I doubt repeating them will make them more so.

But the social norms themselves are not necessarily abusive.

Think of the beliefs which underpin abuse like a three-legged stool; you need all three legs (acceptance of violence; hierarchy, power and control; rigid household roles) for the stool to be stable. But each social norm that strengthens any of those legs of the stool, contributes to a culture of abuse.

I think you will find that when we look at the detail of prevention programs we see that its about restructuring the conditions of society to make people more equal.

Having been involved in such programmes, I'd say it's much more about challenging beliefs and attitudes.

When they say distress is linked with unreal beliefs and abuse that is exactly what they mean.

"LInked with" is not the same as "is the cause of."

Wait a minute your the one who cited the PRIBS as the go to measure for parental beliefs about abuse.

Not at all. You claimed abuse was driven by irrational beliefs. I asked what was being measured as "irrational beliefs," we went through what scales like the PRIBS measured, and discovered that measures of irrational beliefs include a great deal that does not relate to the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse, and only include some of those attitudes and beliefs which do drive abuse.

We did not go through the PRIBS point by point.

Yes, we did. I'm not going back through the thread to cite post numbers now, but we definitely did.

The 4 basic beliefs Demandingness, Catastrophizing, Frustration Intolerance and Self-Downing cover all parental beliefs regarding how they interact with their child.

And of those, only demandingness relates in some degree to the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse. And those four do not cover all of the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse.

 

[stevevw]

That small area of claim that a, b, and c, all contribute to something, we ought to be able to demonstrate how, and measure how much, each of those things contribute.

We can and I have linked the evidence for showing each risk factors role in contributing to distress and abusive and controlling behaviour ie I linked seperate evidence for how low socioeconomic status, past abuse, DV, substance abuse, stressors, psychological distress, family structure ect can all contribute. I then linked evidence showing their combined contribution in various mixes of risk factors.

Not just say, "Oh, we tend to see a, b and c more often near this other thing, so of course they're what causes it!"

Your making another strawman in saying the risk factors must be causes. I never said that. I said their contribute, are linked, and combine to increase risk to the point of actual abuse for some who cannot handle things.

I do dispute it. You have not demonstrated that most claimed risk factors cause abuse in any way.

I have shown that the risk factors combine and are directly associated with abusive behaviour. No single risk factor causes abuse. Rather its the combined risk factors minus any protective factors. This approach is reflected in the evidence of most if not all professionals who deal with child abuse.

This is very vague. At this point it's not even clear exactly what you're claiming.

Its not vague, your making it vague to avoid the clear implications of the evidence. I said I have provided evidence for how these risk factors contribute individually and as a combined effect to increase the likelihood of abuse.

I don't believe so. Where does it demonstrate that abusers hold the beliefs they do because of distress?

Right here

Numerous factors were consistently related to more positive parenting attitudes (i.e., more appropriate parenting expectations, greater empathy, and valuing non-physical punishment), including lower levels of caregiver depressive symptoms and less severity of stressful life events .

Parental attitudes are thought to be the by-product of these factors, parenting: parents own personal and psychological resources such as their own prior family experiences and functioning, and contextual sources of stress and support such as quality of their social relationships and degree of outside stressors. Consequently, the environmental context is important to consider as a determinant of parenting attitudes and behavior.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213419304594

But does not measure the specific beliefs which underpin abuse. We've been over this...

Yes it does. You even referred to this scale as the measure for abusive attitudes and beliefs. The PRIBS is a comprehensive measure of all parental beliefs including the unreal beliefs and expectations about abusive and controlling punishment.

This is exactly what many of your arguments amount to. This thing happens more often alongside abuse, so it must cause abuse. It's nonsense.

No your creating strawmen fallacies. I am not saying that a specific risk factor cause abuse. I forget now how many times I have said this. That abuse is the result of many factors that combine minus the protective factors.

It's not about abuse. That is very clear from the abstract. If it were about abuse, it would be mentioned.

I mean that abuse was not referred to in the content in passing. Are you claiming you know for sure that abuse is not mentioned in that article.

It's one necessary leg of the tripod, in that it demonstrates acceptance of violence, even if at a level not severe enough to meet the legal definition of abuse.

The point is the legal limit is socially acceptable if we are talking about norms within society. It is itself not deemed as abuse but rather a legitimate and perhaps beneficial part of bring up well behave children.

But I was not discussing non-abusive corporal punishment.

It doesn't matter as the same belief stems from non abusive CP. So the belief in CP itself is not abusive and becomes abusive with the distortion of the belief in CP and making this into abuse.

It's just acceptance of a more severe level of violence.

Yes so the belief stems from the same basis but is distorted into something more severe.

So what differentiates the abuser from the non abusers. Its the distortion of the belief due to a distortion in thinking and perceptions of the world, of the childs behaviour and the situation being percieved as worse than it really is. Something within the person has caused them to distort things.

Yeah, no. I'm confident enough in my professional experience and expertise, not to be dismissed by someone without the same experience and expertise, metaphorically patting me on the head and telling me I don't understand my own work.

First it is not my personal opinion or beliefs that I base what I say regarding this matter. It is the expert opinion and research data that does. So your making a false comparison and an Ad hominem.

Second you don't know my qualifications and experience to make such claims. Put it this way I have qualifications and many years of experience including working within child protection and family case work.

I had to explain to you what primary prevention was, and now you claim to know what the majority of the primary prevention industry think?

Even your own link mentions this when it talks about restructuring the conditions within society to empower the disadvantaged and create an equal society. These are the practical applications of prevention programs.

What your doing is narrowly focusing on one aspect at the societal level and forgetting the individual, family and community levels which are all interwoven with the societal level. This narrow view will distort any prevention approaches and do more harm than good.

As I have been saying over and over why people abuse and are violent is a complex multifaceted and level problem that requires a multipronged approach. The go to theory on understanding human cognition, beliefs and behaviour is the socio-ecological framework which considers influencing factors on the individual, family, community and societal levels which also overlap. The Risk and Protective factors are based on the socio-ecological framework.

I'd disagree. "Most" people in society hold attitudes which accept violence, at least at some level.

Then according to your logic we should see most people engaging in some sort of violent and abusive behaviour. But we don't the majority of people just get on with life and caring for their families.

Most people hold attitudes which accept hierarchy, power and control, rigid roles, at least to a degree. The depth of conviction might vary, but it would be a very rare person who held none of these values to any degree. They are deeply embedded social and cultural norms.

Then your logic would have it that the majority of people are controlling and abusive.

But of course your conflating what is a natural and even beneficial belief in roles and hierarchies and the like as being abusive in itself. Another non sequitor.

Of course not. I have never made such a ridiculously simplistic claim.

The why object and resist the idea that part of cultivating those beliefs are the personal and family experiences abusers have that causes them to see the world in such destructive and hurtful ways towards others.

Like the evidence shows if a person experiences examples of destructive and harmful behaviours then they will believe in that negative stuff. If a person experiences love and kindness then they will believe in love and kindness. Its basically how human thinking and behaviour works.

You need evidence for claims like that.

Already supplied. Tell me why is the vast majority of abuse and violence happens in the the most disadvantaged and distressed communities. Distress and destruction breed distress and destruction.

Dismissing people with whom you disagree as "nut cases" is neither accurate nor helpful.

No we can clearly dismiss them as nut cases. They believe in some delusional ideology that wants to destroy others no matter what justification people want to use to rationalise this away.

If we cannot stand on some clear truth, some facts to condemn certain beliefs and behaviour as detrimental to others and society then we are in big trouble.

 

[Paidiske]

We can and I have linked the evidence for showing each risk factors role in contributing to distress and abusive and controlling behaviour

You haven't even linked convincing evidence that distress causes abusive behaviour. So, your argument is pretty flimsy.

Your making another strawman in saying the risk factors must be causes.

Well, if they're not causes, frankly I'm not particularly interested in them. If you want to claim that something doesn't cause abuse, but somehow erodes our resilience to what does cause it (or the like), that's an interesting side argument, but it's not the main point, which is to actually deal with what causes abuse.

But it certainly seemed to me that you were arguing that the risk factors combined to directly cause people to abuse.

Its not vague,

It might be clear in your mind, but that is not being communicated clearly.

Numerous factors were consistently related to more positive parenting attitudes (i.e., more appropriate parenting expectations, greater empathy, and valuing non-physical punishment), including lower levels of caregiver depressive symptoms and less severity of stressful life events .

Parental attitudes are thought to be the by-product of these factors, parenting: parents own personal and psychological resources such as their own prior family experiences and functioning, and contextual sources of stress and support such as quality of their social relationships and degree of outside stressors. Consequently, the environmental context is important to consider as a determinant of parenting attitudes and behavior.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0145213419304594

The aim of that study was to "investigate correlates"! They're not even making any claims about a causative relationship at all.

Yes it does. You even referred to this scale as the measure for abusive attitudes and beliefs.

No, I didn't, and no, it isn't.

The PRIBS is a comprehensive measure of all parental beliefs including the unreal beliefs and expectations about abusive and controlling punishment.

No, it isn't a "comprehensive measure of all parental beliefs." It measures very specific things. And most of those things are not related to abuse. And the beliefs which underpin abuse are not all represented in the PRIBS.

I am not saying that a specific risk factor cause abuse. I forget now how many times I have said this. That abuse is the result of many factors that combine minus the protective factors.

But for this claim to make any sense, each risk factor must be contributing something to cause abuse. And that's what you haven't demonstrated.

Are you claiming you know for sure that abuse is not mentioned in that article.

I am claiming to know for sure that that article was not about abuse. That is clear from what we can see of it.

The point is the legal limit is socially acceptable if we are talking about norms within society.

However, acceptance of violence up to the legal limit is part of acceptance of violence more generally. Which is one of the attitudes which underpins abuse. Someone who is happy to hit up to the limit, is much more likely to be happy to hit over the limit, than someone who will not hit at all.

So what differentiates the abuser from the non abusers. Its the distortion of the belief

No; it's not the "distortion" of the belief. It is the same belief that corporal punishment is good, but also with ignorance of or willingness to ignore legal limits.

Second you don't know my qualifications and experience to make such claims.

It's very clear in this discussion that they are not the same as mine. As I pointed out before, I had to explain to you what primary prevention was.

Even your own link mentions this when it talks about restructuring the conditions within society to empower the disadvantaged and create an equal society. These are the practical applications of prevention programs.

No; they might also be very good things to do, but they are not really what primary prevention programmes are about. Those programmes are targeted at challenging the beliefs and attitudes which underpin abuse.

Then according to your logic we should see most people engaging in some sort of violent and abusive behaviour.

Only if they hold all of the requisite beliefs and attitudes. I am not claiming that most people hold all three to a significant degree. I am simply pointing out that all three are, to some degree, normalised within our society.

The why object and resist the idea that part of cultivating those beliefs are the personal and family experiences abusers have that causes them to see the world in such destructive and hurtful ways towards others.

I have never claimed that our experiences do not shape our beliefs. On the contrary, I have pointed out that the full range of our experiences shape our beliefs. What I am rejecting is the simplistic construction that says "negative experiences -> stress and distress -> affective and cognitive impairment -> abuse." That's your model, and from what I can see, it is flawed at every single point.

Already supplied.

Where is your "evidence" that people are "primed to want to abuse"?

Tell me why is the vast majority of abuse and violence happens in the the most disadvantaged and distressed communities.

I don't agree. Plenty of abuse and violence happens in every demographic.

No we can clearly dismiss them as nut cases.

Well, I think that the refusal to truly make an effort to understand someone else's perspective only undermines your own credibility.

 

[stevevw]

Not really. Your claims haven't been convincing up until now, I doubt repeating them will make them more so.

But there not my claims. I have linked the evidence and supported these with multiple independent links such as linking stress and distress with abuse beliefs and behaviours. Repeated verification be several independent credible sources is convincing evidence as it meets the high standard of evidence.

Think of the beliefs which underpin abuse like a three-legged stool; you need all three legs (acceptance of violence; hierarchy, power and control; rigid household roles) for the stool to be stable. But each social norm that strengthens any of those legs of the stool, contributes to a culture of abuse.

But if you take out the acceptance of violence, power and control to abuse others then the stool collapses. The hierarchies and roles then become neutral structures that neither abuse or don't abuse. The human element of adding the human ability to control, disempower and commit violence is what makes the stool into something abusive.

Likewise we could replace the leg that wants to control, abuse and violate with a leg that is neutral or even beneficial which would then make the hiearchies and roles of benefit and good for society. So it all depends on the human factor and whether they are using the situation for abuse or for benefit and good healthy reasons.

Having been involved in such programmes, I'd say it's much more about challenging beliefs and attitudes.

Yes and in challenging beliefs your also challenging a can of worms that involves parents psychological distress and the conditions for which they live in and experience.

A parent has unrealistic beliefs and expectations about their child and your going to walk in there and tell them they have the wrong beliefs and attitudes and offer not support with their disadvantage that put them there. This seems cruel and judemental.

"LInked with" is not the same as "is the cause of."

Did I say cause of. You keep looking for this special cause of abuse and violence when there is none. There is no single cause of abuse and violence. Your taking a narrow and unreal view of why people abuse and use violence. How many times have I said this and you keep ignoring it.

Your creating another strawman , in fact the same strawman over and over again like you cannot deal with abuse being caused by a combination of factors.

Not at all. You claimed abuse was driven by irrational beliefs. I asked what was being measured as "irrational beliefs," we went through what scales like the PRIBS measured, and discovered that measures of irrational beliefs include a great deal that does not relate to the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse, and only include some of those attitudes and beliefs which do drive abuse.

No that is what you claimed. The PRIBS did not state anywhere that it was inadequate in measuring the beliefs and attitudes associated with abusive and controlling parenting including abusive punishment.

In fact like I said the core belief of 'Demandingness' was the basic measure of beliefs associated with abusive and controlling parenting ie

Demandingness: This category of irrational beliefs contains absolutist, rigid beliefs which include should, ought, have to statements.
This study demonstrates that the Parent Irrational Beliefs Scale is a valid and reliable for assessing irrational parents’ beliefs.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ936304.pdf

Note "reliable for assessing irrational parents’ beliefs" including those about parenting and the use of maladaptive, dysfunctional and abusive parenting.

This is the core belief out of the 4 core beliefs that cover all beliefs and attitudes about parenting that underpins the Mindset that comes up with ideas like rigid roles and abusive and controlling hierarchies. The article referred to how this core belief relates to beliefs in abusive discipline ie

The aim of the P-RIBS is to contribute to identifying cognitive mechanisms that are responsible for parental dysregulated affect and behaviour. The validation of the P-RIBS has a number of implications to the field of parenting research and interventions. Specifically, the P-RIBS could lead to further understanding of parents’ thinking in selecting different discipline strategies, such as adaptive or maladaptive responses. https://www.sciencedirect.com/scien...?ref=pdf_download&fr=RR-2&rr=8776870729d1a868

Parental beliefs also consist of parents' beliefs about child-rearing, parental expectations, and attribution from their children, parental perceptions of children's behavior, and parental self-efficacy.

Parent demandingness refers to an unrealistic expectation of events of themselves as parents, or of others, in this case, their children (DiGiuseppe & Ketler, 2006).

The theory suggests that demandingness, or "absolutistic, rigid adherence to an idea," is the core of disturbance and that the other beliefs are less critical and are created from demandingness (DiGiuseppe et al., 2014).

Research regarding parents' rational and IBs has stressed the role these cognitions play in parenting behaviors and the negative impact that irrational beliefs could have on parenting practices (Ellis et al., 1966; Bugenthal & Johnson, 2000). Literature on this topic has shown that the types of attributions parents make about the cause (or causes) of their child's behavior can explain parents' emotional and behavioral responses toward their child (Harrison & Sofronoff, 2002).
https://scholar.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1640&context=theses_dissertations

Yes, we did. I'm not going back through the thread to cite post numbers now, but we definitely did.

OK well as per above I cannot remember you addressing this specifically. Besides all your objecting that the P-RIBS not covering beliefs about abusive and controlling parenting this doesn't change the fact that it does cover these beliefs specifically.

The entire P-RIBS is about rational and irrational beliefs about parenting and its effect on childrens development. Do you honestly believe that such a commonly used and referred to scale would not cover one of the most relevant beliefs about parenting, ones related to abusive parenting.

And of those, only demandingness relates in some degree to the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse. And those four do not cover all of the attitudes and beliefs which drive abuse.

Yes as the article says 'Demandingness' is the fundemental core belief that relates to parental abusive demands and dicipline of their child. They describe this core belief as being about rigidity, controlling, demanding certain outcomes which are directly related to harsh and abusive treatment and disicipline.

But the other beliefs are also connected in so far as they contribute. Like 'Low Frustration Tolerance'. This is about being anxious, impatient, not tolerating situations that may upset the parent.

Awfulizing-AWF making things worse than they actually are which is apparent when parents are abusing kids for what is age appropriate behaviour. But generally making many things worse than they really are, unreal expectations and evaluations so that things are distorted.

'Downingness' of self, others and the world. Putting others down, expecting them to be better, always not good enough. The worlds unfair, I'm not good enough (self efficency) which is mentioned in other articles where the parent either thinks they are not good enough or thinks they are better than they really are.

But Demandingness seems to be the core belief behind abusive and controlling beliefs. The others may be more related to creating unreal expectations and beliefs about self, the child and the situation and world they are in.

 

[Paidiske]

But if you take out the acceptance of violence, power and control to abuse others then the stool collapses. The hierarchies and roles then become neutral structures that neither abuse or don't abuse.

No; hierarchy is about control. The enforcement of rigid roles is a form of abuse. These are not "neutral" structures.

Yes and in challenging beliefs your also challenging a can of worms that involves parents psychological distress and the conditions for which they live in and experience.

Perhaps, although in my experience it's not particularly about distress at all. But the central point remains; the focus is on challenging beliefs and attitudes.

A parent has unrealistic beliefs and expectations about their child and your going to walk in there and tell them they have the wrong beliefs and attitudes and offer not support with their disadvantage that put them there. This seems cruel and judemental.

Well, firstly, it's never that blunt. And secondly, it does need to occur within a relationship of trust and support. And thirdly, it's not true that these beliefs are formed by being disadvantaged.

As for cruel and judgemental, you tell me which is more cruel; to challenge the beliefs which underpin abuse, or to allow abuse to go unchallenged?

Did I say cause of.

Well, if it's not causative of abuse, why are we even discussing it?

The PRIBS did not state anywhere that it was inadequate in measuring the beliefs and attitudes associated with abusive and controlling parenting including abusive punishment.

When you look at the beliefs measured by the PRIBS, and you look at the beliefs which underpin abuse, there is only partial overlap.

In fact like I said the core belief of 'Demandingness' was the basic measure of beliefs associated with abusive and controlling parenting

Yep. That's the one bit of overlap. But it doesn't adequately account for the beliefs which underpin abuse (it doesn't account for acceptance of violence, or hierarchy).

And the PRIBS measures other things which are not related to abuse. So you can't look at irrational beliefs, as measured by PRIBS, and say that that is an accurate measure of the beliefs which drive abuse.

Do you honestly believe that such a commonly used and referred to scale would not cover one of the most relevant beliefs about parenting, ones related to abusive parenting.

We looked at it in detail. It does not measure all of the beliefs which underpin abuse. And it measures many things which do not.

But the other beliefs are also connected in so far as they contribute. Like 'Low Frustration Tolerance'. This is about being anxious, impatient, not tolerating situations that may upset the parent.

Awfulizing-AWF making things worse than they actually are which is apparent when parents are abusing kids for what is age appropriate behaviour. But generally making many things worse than they really are, unreal expectations and evaluations so that things are distorted.

'Downingness' of self, others and the world. Putting others down, expecting them to be better, always not good enough. The worlds unfair, I'm not good enough (self efficency) which is mentioned in other articles where the parent either thinks they are not good enough or thinks they are better than they really are.

But these do not relate to acceptance of violence, hierarchy, power, control, or rigid roles. They are separate issues. That is why I have been pointing out that the PRIBS measures many things which do not underpin abusive behaviour.

 

[stevevw]

You haven't even linked convincing evidence that distress causes abusive behaviour. So, your argument is pretty flimsy.

It would be flimsy based on your strawman considering I havn't claimed that distress causes abusive behaviour. I have proven beyond doubt that distress is linked to abusive beliefs and behaviours the vast majority of the time.

As there is no single cause of abusive behaviour no single factor including belief can be said to cause abusive behaviour. So your creating a strawman to argue against and knock down.

Well, if they're not causes, frankly I'm not particularly interested in them. If you want to claim that something doesn't cause abuse, but somehow erodes our resilience to what does cause it (or the like), that's an interesting side argument, but it's not the main point, which is to actually deal with what causes abuse.

Your not getting it. There is no single cause of abuse. Its a combination of factors. Even your links state this. If you want to exclude the factors that contribute to abuse then you have nothing as to why people abuse.

If you make belief itself the only cause of abuse then you are distorting why people abuse and any approach to remedying the problem will also be distorted and cause more problems.

But it certainly seemed to me that you were arguing that the risk factors combined to directly cause people to abuse.

You can call it cause but we cannot say that any specific factors cause abuse. That is why professionals don't really talk in terms of specific causes but use the Risk and protective factors. This is the same approach for all social behavioural problems. We cannot say that any specific factor causes these behaviours.

But we can look at the individual, family, community and wider societal factors as an all encompassing influence with a combination of factors at each level influencing attitudes, beliefs and behaviour. Where individuals and families and communities within the wider community have different and varyings experiences and factors, conditions, family functioning ect which all contribute to either increasing the risk factors or the protective factors.

Abuse is the result of a combination of risk factors minus any protective factors.

It might be clear in your mind, but that is not being communicated clearly.

How is a statement such as this not clear
Numerous factors were consistently related to more positive parenting attitudes (i.e., more appropriate parenting expectations, greater empathy, and valuing non-physical punishment), including lower levels of caregiver depressive symptoms and less severity of stressful life events .

Parental attitudes are the by-product of a parents own personal and psychological resources such as their own prior family experiences and functioning, and contextual sources of stress and degree of outside stressors.

Elevated levels of parent dysfunctional/irrational cognitions are associated with parental distress

Heres one for you lol
Divergent etiological viewpoints of child abuse stress psychological disturbance in parents, abuse-eliciting characteristics of children, dysfunctional patterns of family interaction, stress-inducing social forces, and abuse-promoting cultural values.

The aim of that study was to "investigate correlates"! They're not even making any claims about a causative relationship at all.

Its your link, why did you post it if it was only about correlations to support your arguement when you claim correlates are not causative. Your having an each way bet lol.

Your article is about the determinants of abusive attitudes, expectations and beliefs of parents. There is no other way to measure parental beliefs than through the determinants. Their is no magic bullet as to why people believe what they believe. Belief is the result of experiences and therefore vary sothere is no specific cause and only correlates. But some correlates can have more of a direct and bigger influence than others.

No, I didn't, and no, it isn't.

Didn't you refer to the PRIBS. You ask me which measure they were using in the PRIBS for articles I linked. Otherwise why did you bring up the PRIBS if not relevant.

No, it isn't a "comprehensive measure of all parental beliefs." It measures very specific things. And most of those things are not related to abuse. And the beliefs which underpin abuse are not all represented in the PRIBS.

Then you misunderstand the PRIBS. Its not measuring specific examples of beliefs such as in rigid roles or controlling marriages or hierarchies. Its measuring the cognitive states which create the beliefs in rigid roles and abusive hierarchies.

This is what I have been trying to explain to you. You are focusing on the symptoms, the examples of how the controlling mindset thinks of ways to control and abuse others. The core beliefs such as 'Demandingness' is the mindset that thinks and percieves the world in rigid and controlling and demanding ways.

So the core belief of 'Demandingness' and to a lessor degree the 3 other core beliefs cover the Mindset of all irrational beliefs. Which includes the distress that leads to the awefullizing and the low frustration, ect which are all involved to varying degrees, But for abusive parenting 'Demandingness' is the basis for all controlling and rigid type thinking, beliefs and behaviour.

But for this claim to make any sense, each risk factor must be contributing something to cause abuse. And that's what you haven't demonstrated.

I have many times you it just doesn't register with you, I don't know why. Maybe a different ideological standpoint.

But if you remember I have said that these risk factors combine and they can vary from person to person and that they feed into each other and are often comorbib. So when you find one you usually find another or others.

So in that sense they sort of blend into each other so theres no clear seperation where we can say this is where psychological distress stopped and substance abuse took over. They often feed off each other and its often a downhill trajectory once a person has 2 or 3 risk factors. So how can anyone show specific seperate influences.

But nonetheless I have more than adequately shown their link to abuse in more than one way as far as articles just focusing on the socioeconomic angle and how this leads to other risks and abuse. Or the past abuse angle, the psychological distress angle, the family structure angle, the DV angle, the stress angle. Each linking to other risks and then all converging on a link to abuse and violent behaviour.

I am claiming to know for sure that that article was not about abuse. That is clear from what we can see of it.

Your creating another strawman. I will repeat what I was asking.

I wasn't asking what the article was about. I was asking "are you claiming the article did not refer to the connection with abuse" even in passing in any of the rest of the content we cannot see. Which would be the vast majority of text. Such as in the background section or introduction ect which give some background to the topic.

 

[stevevw]

However, acceptance of violence up to the legal limit is part of acceptance of violence more generally. Which is one of the attitudes which underpins abuse. Someone who is happy to hit up to the limit, is much more likely to be happy to hit over the limit, than someone who will not hit at all.

Now your supporting my arguement that abusers don't have control. But your also casting aspersions of good parents who use controlled CP as an important part of how they manage their kids.

As a society we recognise punishment and taking responsibility and that includes various punishments that some may say are controlling and denying peoples rights and autonomy. The law is made up of the punitive and the rehabilitative aspects. Parents who use controlled CP within a range of measures to help bring their child up are not abusive.

No; it's not the "distortion" of the belief. It is the same belief that corporal punishment is good, but also with ignorance of or willingness to ignore legal limits.

So now your saying any CP is bad, is not justified. Australia should ban CP.

I am glad you said ignorant because that is important in that parents unreal beliefs and expectations are ignorant and irrational. Even for a parent to ignore the legal limit and abuse is in denial. Something within them causes this denial, this unreality. A willingness to damage their own child comes from a unreal and distressed place. It goes against every instinct between parent and child and life itself. It won't to destroy not make better.

It's very clear in this discussion that they are not the same as mine. As I pointed out before, I had to explain to you what primary prevention was.

You are making a false representation. Show me where I said I do not understand what primary prevention is when it comes to social behaviour.

I did not say I did not understand what primary prevention was. I asked you for your definition to see where you were coming from. That is not saying I don't understand primary prevention. You are presenting one fallacy after another that I cannot keep up lol.

No; they might also be very good things to do, but they are not really what primary prevention programmes are about. Those programmes are targeted at challenging the beliefs and attitudes which underpin abuse.

Then why did the link you supplied as an example of primary prevention was actually about restructuring society to change beliefs and attitudes and not just awareness programs.

How can we change attitudes and beliefs without changing the practical conditions that cause the negative attitudes and beliefs lol.

You can't make some single mum to change her beliefs and attitudes while stressed and distressed trying to cope by telling her she has a bad attitude. Shes liable to throw a chair at you. Or some irrate substance abusing boyfriend whose hitting the child that they need to wake up to themselves. The message would not register. They would not care.

But relieve some of that stress, give more resources, get them into some individual and family therapy and they will soon change their beliefs and attitudes. You know why. Because their their disposition is being changed on the inside from the negative world they were in to one of hope and empowerment and this is what brings some wellbeing and resilence to have a more positive attitude.

Only if they hold all of the requisite beliefs and attitudes. I am not claiming that most people hold all three to a significant degree. I am simply pointing out that all three are, to some degree, normalised within our society.

And is that normalisation a good or bad thing.

This seems like strange and even dangerous way to determine why people abuse and for understanding potential abusive beliefs. It seems more like the 'thought police' or rather the 'Belief Police' lol. I mean what if someone believes in one of the legs, in hierachies and particular roles are they a suspect. Will they be interegated to see if they also have the other legs of the 'Stool of Belief'.

I mean if one of the legs in this triology of beliefs is a normal and even beneficial belief as well how does one even work out what hierarchies for example need to be dismantled lol. They could be dismantling legitimate and good hierarchies. Sounds to subjective and mish mash to me. I would rather ground things in facts, in reality by understanding the practical and real life experiences that cause people to abuse.

I have never claimed that our experiences do not shape our beliefs. On the contrary, I have pointed out that the full range of our experiences shape our beliefs. What I am rejecting is the simplistic construction that says "negative experiences -> stress and distress -> affective and cognitive impairment -> abuse." That's your model, and from what I can see, it is flawed at every single point.

Actually you explained it pretty good except you missed that its also a multilevel issue individual, family, community and societal wide.

By the way its not my model but the people working in the inddustry in the know who have studied and researched human cognition and behaviour. If it works for every other social problem then why is inappropriate behaviour regarding abuse not included.

Where is your "evidence" that people are "primed to want to abuse"?

I will answer this reply and the others below seperatly as I think its important. In the meantime an obvious question. If our experiences shape our beliefs then how can we not be primed by our experiences to believe what we believe.

 

[Paidiske]

It would be flimsy based on your strawman considering I havn't claimed that distress causes abusive behaviour.

That seemed to be very much your claim. But if it's not, why on earth have we spent so much time talking about distress?

Your not getting it. There is no single cause of abuse. Its a combination of factors.

At the end of the day, an abuser chooses to abuse. They make this choice based on their beliefs, attitudes and values. That is the cause. Change those beliefs, attitudes and values, and they will not abuse!

If you want to exclude the factors that contribute to abuse then you have nothing as to why people abuse.

How can you talk about "factors that contribute to abuse," and "why people abuse," and then deny that you are talking about causes?

But we can look at the individual, family, community and wider societal factors as an all encompassing influence with a combination of factors at each level influencing attitudes, beliefs and behaviour.

But even there, you have to admit that it is ultimately about shaping attitudes and beliefs.

Its your link, why did you post it if it was only about correlations to support your arguement when you claim correlates are not causative. Your having an each way bet lol.

In which post did I originally post it?

There is no other way to measure parental beliefs than through the determinants.

Not at all true. We can measure parental beliefs directly.

Belief is the result of experiences and therefore vary sothere is no specific cause and only correlates.

That's not really correct. Sure, our experiences and the things which form our beliefs vary, but there are particular causes. We can see this in the way that people are influenced by social and cultural norms, or by what they are taught.

Didn't you refer to the PRIBS. You ask me which measure they were using in the PRIBS for articles I linked. Otherwise why did you bring up the PRIBS if not relevant.

It was relevant because you were claiming that abuse was caused by parents' irrational beliefs. And you linked articles talking about irrational beliefs. So I asked, what are those studies of "irrational beliefs" actually measuring, and are they the same beliefs which underpin abuse, and on examination, discovered that no, they are mostly not. So you cannot take articles talking about "irrational beliefs" in parents as directly relevant to abuse.

You are focusing on the symptoms, the examples of how the controlling mindset thinks of ways to control and abuse others. The core beliefs such as 'Demandingness' is the mindset that thinks and percieves the world in rigid and controlling and demanding ways.

But "demandingness" is not enough, on its own, to underpin the physical abuse of children.

So the core belief of 'Demandingness' and to a lessor degree the 3 other core beliefs cover the Mindset of all irrational beliefs.

This is just nonsense. As if there is no other form of irrational belief than those four measures. And yet there are many. But the really key thing here is, those four core beliefs do not cover the set of beliefs which drive abuse.

I have many times you it just doesn't register with you, I don't know why.

And yet earlier in this very post you were saying they don't cause abuse! And you wonder why I find your position inconsistent and rather incoherent.

I wasn't asking what the article was about. I was asking "are you claiming the article did not refer to the connection with abuse" even in passing in any of the rest of the content we cannot see. Which would be the vast majority of text. Such as in the background section or introduction ect which give some background to the topic.

I'm not claiming that. But I'm claiming that another source, citing this article as establishing something about abuse, when this article is clearly not about abuse, looks dodgy at best.

Now your supporting my arguement that abusers don't have control.

Not at all.

But your also casting aspersions of good parents who use controlled CP as an important part of how they manage their kids.

I'm not casting aspersions. I'm making no value judgement, just a statement of fact.

So now your saying any CP is bad, is not justified. Australia should ban CP.

That's not what I said. I said that the beliefs which justify corporal punishment which the law does not deem abusive, are basically the same beliefs which justify physically abusive corporal punishment.

I am glad you said ignorant because that is important in that parents unreal beliefs and expectations are ignorant and irrational.

I meant specifically ignorant of the law.

Even for a parent to ignore the legal limit and abuse is in denial.

In denial of what, exactly? Is it "denial" to decide that the lawmakers have got it wrong on this particular point, and that you are going to do as you see fit?

A willingness to damage their own child comes from a unreal and distressed place.

But they don't see it as damage. They see it as good and necessary parenting. And that isn't necessarily coming from an "unreal" and distressed place, at all.

You are making a false representation. Show me where I said I do not understand what primary prevention is when it comes to social behaviour.

I had to explain it to you earlier in the thread! I'm not going back to find posts. But I'm not going to be gaslit by you pretending that part of the conversation didn't happen.

Then why did the link you supplied as an example of primary prevention was actually about restructuring society to change beliefs and attitudes and not just awareness programs.

I have never talked about primary prevention as "awareness programmes." It is absolutely about changing beliefs and attitudes. That is what primary prevention work is.

How can we change attitudes and beliefs without changing the practical conditions that cause the negative attitudes and beliefs lol.

I've never agreed that these attitudes and beliefs are caused by "practical conditions." They're largely social and cultural norms.

You can't make some single mum to change her beliefs and attitudes while stressed and distressed trying to cope by telling her she has a bad attitude.

A complete caricature of what primary prevention work might look like.

But relieve some of that stress, give more resources, get them into some individual and family therapy and they will soon change their beliefs and attitudes.

Really no. If you make them less stressed and better resourced, unless that therapy is challenging the beliefs and attitudes which drive abuse, they will just be less stressed, better resourced abusers.

Because their their disposition is being changed on the inside from the negative world they were in to one of hope and empowerment and this is what brings some wellbeing and resilence to have a more positive attitude.

But hope and empowerment and positivity don't prevent abuse! Someone can be a hopeful, empowered, positive abuser. As long as they hold the core beliefs which underpin abuse, they will keep feeling justified in what they are doing.

And is that normalisation a good or bad thing.

Clearly a bad thing, since it is what drives abuse in our culture.

I mean what if someone believes in one of the legs, in hierachies and particular roles are they a suspect. Will they be interegated to see if they also have the other legs of the 'Stool of Belief'.

Why would they be a suspect, unless there were some evidence of abuse occurring?

You might remember that earlier in the thread, I suggested that a questionnaire looking at these specific beliefs would be a much better predictor of the risk of abuse, than some of the other measures being discussed. I could see a situation where, say, new parents who scored highly on all those beliefs were flagged for early support and intervention.

That's not necessarily interrogation. But it would be much more effective than stereotyping people based on their household structure or socioeconomic status.

I mean if one of the legs in this triology of beliefs is a normal and even beneficial belief as well how does one even work out what hierarchies for example need to be dismantled lol.

Each would need to be examined on its merits. Clearly in this thread we are largely discussing household hierarchies, and when it comes to parents and children, to some extent that's necessary, but how do we help parents to exercise necessary power, control and authority in healthy and nurturing ways, rather than abusive ways? That's a really pertinent question.

I would rather ground things in facts, in reality by understanding the practical and real life experiences that cause people to abuse.

That belief in hierarchy underpins abuse is a fact; is reality.

Actually you explained it pretty good

So you see that I do understand your model. I just see it as completely false. (Nor do I believe that this is the model for "every other social problem").

If our experiences shape our beliefs then how can we not be primed by our experiences to believe what we believe.

I am rejecting your particular model where "They have to be primed to want to abuse others and anyone primed to abuse others has psychological issues that cause them to turn abuse into something good."

 

[stevevw]

Where is your "evidence" that people are "primed to want to abuse"?

I take note of your reply in the other post. But as far as evidence for how people are primed to abuse and be violent I think we first have to establish what we are talking about.

I think that to establish whether someone has been primed to believe in abuse and violence we need to understand generally how and why people come to believe what they believe. The mechanisms and reasons for particular cognitions, emotions, perceptions and beliefs behind behaviour. Do you agree with this.

I don't agree. Plenty of abuse and violence happens in every demographic.

This is false. The vast majority of abuse and violence happens in the most disadvantagious and devastated communities. In some extreme cases up to 98% of all violence happpens in the most deprived and disadvantaged communities.

Individual economic hardship can also increase the risk for physical and emotional abuse. Indeed, children in low socioeconomic households are 3 times more likely to experience abuse compared to their more affluent peers.

Researchers have commonly relied upon the Family Stress Model (FSM) of Economic Hardship (Conger et al., 1994) to understand the ways in which economic hardships can relate to negative child outcomes. The model proposes that economic hardships can disrupt positive family processes, evoking parental depression, stress, and anxiety. Such mental health stressors, in turn, increases the likelihood of fighting and distress between spouses, increased parental hostility, and other negative parenting behaviors (Conger et al., 1994; Mistry et al, 2002; Newland et al., 2013).

As a result, children in families experiencing economic shocks are more likely to witness their parents’ emotional distress and to experience harsh and inconsistent discipline practices (Conger et al., 1994). Prior studies have found economic hardships to be related to increased risk for harsh parenting and maltreatment (Neppl et al., 2016; Yang, 2014).

Neighborhood Poverty, Family Economic Well-Being, and Child Maltreatment

This study sought to understand the relationships between neighborhood poverty, family monetary well-being, and child maltreatment. The specific research questions were as follows: (1) Is neighborhood poverty at age 1 related to child physical abuse, ...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

Children in families of higher socio-economic position (SEP), as indicated by educational level of respondent or partner, and household wealth index, will be at lower risk of experiencing abuse compared to those of lower SEP. The finding that living in households with poorer wealth quintile increased the likelihood of a child being struck and slapped is concordant with other studies,
Social determinants of child abuse: evidence of factors associated with maternal abuse from the Egypt demographic and health survey

There is a strong association between families’ socio-economic circumstances and the chances that their children will experience child abuse and neglect. The evidence repeatedly points to this conclusion across developed countries, types of abuse, definitions, measures and research approaches and in different child protection systems.ii

There is a gradient in the relationship between families’ socio-economic circumstances and rates of child abuse and neglect that mirrors the inequalities that appear in health and education – the greater the economic disadvantage, the greater the likelihood and severity of child maltreatment.iii
Policy Position - Poverty and Child Abuse and Neglect

There is a gradient relationships between increasings rates of child abuse and increases towards the lowest percentile of socioeconomic status.

Well, I think that the refusal to truly make an effort to understand someone else's perspective only undermines your own credibility.

There is no perspective to understanding a radical ideology that justifies brutalizing, raping and killing innocents. There is a case that we should try to understand why people do this as part of understanding the bigger picture as far as preventing it happening.

But by doing this we come to see that the behaviour is unreal and inappropriate. We have scientific measures as to what are distorted thinking and beliefs so we can know which these are.

Once we understand this we can then try to understand why some peoples thinking and beliefs become distorted and negative. How the personal, family and community experiences and conditions in society cause some to end up like this.

By doing this we then have a better idea of the problem and how to reduce and prevent it.

That is exactly what I have been advocating. So if anything I am advocating for a comprehensive and holistic measure and understanding rather than refusing to understand.

I think its the narrow view you are taking based on on beliefs as the cause and most relevant aspect of why people abuse and become violent which is refusing to understand other peoples perspectives.

 

[Paidiske]

I think that to establish whether someone has been primed to believe in abuse and violence we need to understand generally how and why people come to believe what they believe. The mechanisms and reasons for particular cognitions, emotions, perceptions and beliefs behind behaviour. Do you agree with this.

I don't agree that we have a solid basis for understanding all of that to any degree of specificity.

However, I think if you want to claim that someone is "primed to want to abuse," you must have some very specific idea in mind, and that is a hypothesis that can then be examined.

This is false.

No, it is not. While it is true that higher rates of abuse are reported in more socio-economically disadvantaged households, it is still present to a very significant degree across all demographics.

Incidentally, this is a very interesting paper, which points out that measures of abuse by household income often mask other dynamics in play. https://repec.iza.org/dp7355.pdf

There is no perspective to understanding a radical ideology...

I completely disagree, but that's getting very off topic, so I will let it drop.

 

[stevevw]

No; hierarchy is about control. The enforcement of rigid roles is a form of abuse. These are not "neutral" structures.

A hierarchy itself is not always about control. For example hierarchies of competence such as strength, social skills, or any human talent.

Natural hierarchies are formed due to competence. The more competent individuals, groups or organisations sit at the top and have advantages because they are more popular due to their competencies. They are in demand. As opposed to less competent who may occupy the middle levels and then the least competent at the bottom who struggle to get a foothold or don't benefit as much or not at all.

Society is full of cometency hierarchies which are not controlling or abusive and even beneficial in that we get access to the most competent people to get the job done properly and keep society in order while weeding out the imcompetent which will cause chaos.

What about rigid roles in company or even military hierarchies of command from the top to the bottom. Even hierarchies of command within sections, hiearchies within hierarchies. All controlling others with rigid roles to conform to in getting the job done. What about natural taxomony hiearchies of the animal kingdom are these controlling or abusive.

Perhaps, although in my experience it's not particularly about distress at all. But the central point remains; the focus is on challenging beliefs and attitudes.

But what I find difficult to get my head around is how we could even know which beliefs are the inappropriate ones unless we can measure the harm they cause due to the risks for the harm they cause. In other words its hard to tell whether a belief is linked to abuse unless it actually causes abuse.

The only way I can see in knowing this is actually looking at where abuse happens on the ground and then tracing backwards as to why, what the experience and circumstances that have led to this. What are the individual, family, community and societal wide reasons for this.

But we can't as a society be saying "all beliefs in hierarchies and rigid roles and the like" are bad and lead to abusive control because they don't. Like you said its a subjective value judgement. Without some ground to prove and link the belief to actual abuse which can only be done by grounding it in actually abuse happening then we have no right.

Nor do we have the right to themn say this set of beliefs and attitudes or behaviours and societal conditions are best to prevent abuse unless we also ground this in actual evidence that its linked to abuse.

Well, firstly, it's never that blunt. And secondly, it does need to occur within a relationship of trust and support. And thirdly, it's not true that these beliefs are formed by being disadvantaged.

So your going to tell the disadvantaged parent who feels that disadvantage that it has nothing to do with he situation for how she got where she is. That the stress and distress she experiences has no influence on how she percieves things and acts. When society recognises that for every other social problem past experiences influence why they behave that way.

When all the sciences tell us that past experiences influence cognition and beliefs. Your going to come in their with your ideological beliefs and assumptions and dismiss all that as irrelevant., I think this is unreal and will do more harm than good.

As for cruel and judgemental, you tell me which is more cruel; to challenge the beliefs which underpin abuse, or to allow abuse to go unchallenged?

Your creating another either and or fallacy. Its not a case of my way or the highway, either you challenge the belief or your allowing abuse. I think challenging beliefs is not actually about challenging beliefs. As beliefs can be so ingrained, have become a part of the person, a need, a defence mechanism that they have come to rely on then challenging the belief itself can only scare people away.

Challenging the belief is getting to know and understand why the belief. Why the parent thinks this and how they percieve things. Often you will find worries, resentments, insecurities, unreal expectations and getting to the bottom of these is the key to changing the person from within and not trying to make them conform to something they are not ready to acknowledge.

Look at substance abuse or any belief thats destructive. You can't make someone change those beliefs without changing their insides, their thinking and perceptions that caused them to believe in those destructive ideas in the first place.

 

[stevevw]

Well, if it's not causative of abuse, why are we even discussing it?

Then there is nothing to discuss at all because there is no single cause of abuse. The only way we can discuss why people abuse and use violence is through links, correlations, associations, risks, determinants and protective factors. Some factors pr correlations are more prominant that others. But none are singularly causative.

When you look at the beliefs measured by the PRIBS, and you look at the beliefs which underpin abuse, there is only partial overlap.

No the core beliefs in the PRIBS are what underpin the Mindset for all examples of that Mindset being applied to situations like hierarchies and roles or relationships or business partnerships or any example you want to give. These are the symptoms or the expressions of how the controlling mindset applies itself.

As mentioned the main core belief related to abusive control including abusive and controlling parenting is "Demandingness". ie


Demandingness, or "absolutistic, rigid adherence to an idea," is the core of disturbance and that the other beliefs are less critical and are created from demandingness.
https://scholar.stjohns.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1640&context=theses_dissertations

In otherwords its the Demandingness, absolutistic and rigid aherence by the mind to an idea like roles or hierarchies that makes it abusive and not the hierarchies and roles themselves, They are just the ideas a Demanding, absolutistic and rigid Mindset adheres to.

Parental beliefs also consist of parents' beliefs about child-rearing, parental expectations, and attribution from their children, parental perceptions of children's behavior, and parental self-efficacy (Azar et al., 2005; Bornstein & Cote, 2004). Parent demandingness refers to an unrealistic expectation of events of themselves as parents, or of others, in this case, their children (DiGiuseppe & Ketler, 2006).

Demandingness: This category of irrational beliefs contains absolutist, rigid beliefs which include should, ought, have to statements.
https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/EJ936304.pdf

In other words this is the core belief shema that all beliefs about rigidity, controlling hierarchies such as certain people "should or have to" occupy certain levels or roles ect. Its the core belief behind all demand type controlling beliefs come from.

DiGiuseppe et al. (2014) proposed four categories of irrational beliefs: demandingness as core belief, respectively LFT, global evaluation of human worth and awfulizing as logical derivatives of demandingness.

The basic irrational belief that underlies human disturbance is the absolutistic “must” or demand statements about self, others and life conditions (Ellis, 1994). Demandingness is the tendency to transform wishes, desires, and preferences into absolutistic requirements. Following the level of cognition proposed by DiGiuseppe et al. (2014), demandingness is a core irrational belief which serves as a basic life philosophy.
Irrational Beliefs and Personality Traits as Psychological Mechanisms Underlying the Adolescents' Extremist Mind-Set

Yep. That's the one bit of overlap. But it doesn't adequately account for the beliefs which underpin abuse (it doesn't account for acceptance of violence, or hierarchy).

The four core beliefs or Demandingness, Awefulizing, Intolerance Frustration and Global evaluations of self others and the world are the core belief shemas that are the basis for all human negative beliefs.

A person who comes up with the idea of creating abusive and controlling and rigid roles and hiearchies will have a combination of these 4 basic core beliefs with Demandingness being the main core belief which all other beliefs stem from. This has been proven and tested in clinical studies.

And the PRIBS measures other things which are not related to abuse. So you can't look at irrational beliefs, as measured by PRIBS, and say that that is an accurate measure of the beliefs which drive abuse.

Yes you can, its been clinically verified. It is rediculous to say that a Parental belief scale designed to measure unhealthy, negative and irrational beliefs about parenting is not measuring the most important belief that is linked to unhealthy and inappropriate parenting.

Its like saying a clincial scale to measure personality disorders cannot measure the most important personality disorders. The PRIBS even states its measuring controlling beliefs about parenting that are unhealthy for children. Beliefs that are rigid and demanding about the way they see their children and how they treat them. That exactly relates to using controlling and abusive disicipline.

We looked at it in detail. It does not measure all of the beliefs which underpin abuse. And it measures many things which do not.

Nop we did not look at this in detail. We spent about 2 posts on it and we didn't discuss in detail what each core belief was about and how this relates to parenting. From memory you only spoke about 3 sentences on the entire article which was something along the lines of what your saying now. That the only core belief that may be relevant was 'Demandingness'. You said nothing else. Never explained why or mentioned anything alse in that article.

This is a good example of how theres a vast difference between what you claim and what you have actually done. I can go back and show you exactly what you said and there was no in detail discussion.

But these do not relate to acceptance of violence, hierarchy, power, control, or rigid roles. They are separate issues. That is why I have been pointing out that the PRIBS measures many things which do not underpin abusive behaviour.

Take out the hierarchy and rigid roles and it says everything about a controlling and rigid mind. A controlling and rigid mind is what comes up with rigid roles and controlling setups be it a hiearchy, Trad marriage, business partnership, 2 people on a deserted island where one controls the other or any idea a controlling mind comes up with.

Your getting fixated on these two examples when its not about the symptopms of a controlling mind but the controlling mind itself. The Schemas and ways the mind thinks rigidly, in black and white, do's and dont's, Musts, Demands ect. Which are a Mindset and not explained by any one or two examples which are the symptoms of the mindset.

Its like focusing on the symptoms of addiction like how its expressed in behaviour and not the addictive thinking behind the examples of how addiction is expressed in society.

 

[Paidiske]

A hierarchy itself is not always about control. For example hierarchies of competence such as strength, social skills, or any human talent.

But this is not what we are talking about, when we talk about hierarchy as a driver of abuse.

What about rigid roles in company or even military hierarchies of command from the top to the bottom.

These, too, can be problematic. But we are speaking of rigid roles in a household setting.

But what I find difficult to get my head around is how we could even know which beliefs are the inappropriate ones unless we can measure the harm they cause

Sure. That's been my argument all through this thread. These beliefs and attitudes drive abuse, which is harmful.

The only way I can see in knowing this is actually looking at where abuse happens on the ground and then tracing backwards as to why, what the experience and circumstances that have led to this.

But we can study the actual beliefs and attitudes of perpetrators, and how they differ from others. That work has been done. That's how we know which beliefs and attitudes underpin abuse.

But we can't as a society be saying "all beliefs in hierarchies and rigid roles and the like" are bad and lead to abusive control because they don't.

They are one part of the problem. On their own, they're not the whole problem. But we can tackle that part, alongside the other parts.

Without some ground to prove and link the belief to actual abuse which can only be done by grounding it in actually abuse happening then we have no right.

But we have that ground. We have the proof. We have demonstrated that these are the beliefs held by abusers, which drive them to abuse.

So your going to tell the disadvantaged parent who feels that disadvantage that it has nothing to do with he situation for how she got where she is.

It's not why she abuses. Nor would I accept it as a justification.

I think this is unreal and will do more harm than good.

I think you're misrepresenting my pastoral approach.

Its not a case of my way or the highway, either you challenge the belief or your allowing abuse.

To some degree, I think it is.

I think challenging beliefs is not actually about challenging beliefs.

??

As beliefs can be so ingrained, have become a part of the person, a need, a defence mechanism that they have come to rely on then challenging the belief itself can only scare people away.

Do you not believe in repentance?

Challenging the belief is getting to know and understand why the belief...is the key to changing the person from within and not trying to make them conform to something they are not ready to acknowledge.

I'm not talking about making someone conform to something they're not ready to acknowledge. I'm talking about helping them to be ready to acknowledge it.

The only way we can discuss why people abuse and use violence is through links, correlations, associations, risks, determinants and protective factors.

I completely disagree. Correlations, associations, risks and so on are mostly statistical artefacts, and irrelevant.

No the core beliefs in the PRIBS are what underpin the Mindset

No, they really aren't. The PRIBS measures a lot that is not related to abuse, and does not measure all the attitudes/beliefs which underpin abuse.

Yes you can, its been clinically verified.

Link your evidence, because from what I can see, there is only partial overlap.

Nop we did not look at this in detail.

I even went to the trouble of creating a Venn diagram to illustrate the situation.

Take out the hierarchy and rigid roles and it says everything about a controlling and rigid mind.

My point is that demandingness relates to these things; the other attributes measured by the PRIBS do not.

 

[stevevw]

But this is not what we are talking about, when we talk about hierarchy as a driver of abuse.

I am pointing out that your saying a hierarchy itself is abusive and controlling. I am saying with these examples they they are not in themselves and it takes an abusing person to make them so. But because people can also make hierarchies benefical and they can naturally form as a result of societies natural inclination to categorize people based on competencies they are not abusive themselves.

These, too, can be problematic. But we are speaking of rigid roles in a household setting.

But because they can possibly become problematic means they are themselves not problematic and only become that way when someone exploits them.

We went through the rigid roles of household settings. A trad marriage has rigid roles but is not controllong in an abusive way. In fact those who advocate them say they are beneficial.

Sure. That's been my argument all through this thread. These beliefs and attitudes drive abuse, which is harmful.

You missed the point. We only know these beliefs because of the abuse. But beforehand we didn't. There was no way to tell which beliefs were negative and led to abuse. So theres no way to tell which beliefs will lead to abuse in the future until they actually are linked to abuse. Its always hindsight.

But we can tell the risk factors because we understand how humans think and behave and that certain thinking and psychological disorders do lead to bad behaviour through the science.

But we can study the actual beliefs and attitudes of perpetrators, and how they differ from others. That work has been done. That's how we know which beliefs and attitudes underpin abuse.

Except if someone has a belief in hierarchies which is often subconscious and natural we cannot say that belief is hierarchies is abusive and controlling. Beliefs are subjective. Like I said at present there are beliefs being promoted in society that have been shown to be abusive and yet society or at least those in positions of influence advocate them as being good.

Its only grounding beliefs in what actually happens and not speculating which beliefs are negative and abusive that we can know for sure which beliefs are abusive and controlling in a negative way.

They are one part of the problem. On their own, they're not the whole problem. But we can tackle that part, alongside the other parts.

I think this language and narrative is damaging in itself as you keep conflating that hierarchies themselves are part of the problem. Rather you should be saying that a hierarchy 'becomes' abusive in the hands of the wrong person. Just like a car becomes a weapon and harms others in the hands of the wrong person. But the car itself in not abusive.

But we have that ground. We have the proof. We have demonstrated that these are the beliefs held by abusers, which drive them to abuse.

No we havn't. The same beliefs in hierarchies and rigid roles can be shown to not be abusive.

It's not why she abuses. Nor would I accept it as a justification.

It is partly why they abuse and your dismissing this like its completely irrelevant. Its like telling a sunstance abuser that their past experiences have nothing to do with their addiction and its because they have the wrong belief.

All and I repeat all the evidence states that the negative experiences of a person and the distress and other factors or determinants linked to abuse are exactly why parents abuse. So your dismissing the facts just like dimissing the facts that show that past experiences and psychological and emotional distress are linked to other negative behaviour like substance abuse, gang violence, DV, criminality, anti social behaviour.

Somehow because of your pre concieved ideas you make inappropriate parental behaviour immune to these natural human cognitions and behaviours. Once again the facts and not ideology. Just look at all the evidence I have linked showing that parental negative experiences and the resulting distress is linked to the vast majority of abuse.

And before you use the logical fallacy that its not the cause, there is no single cause and but rather its the combination of risk factors minus protective factors.

I think you're misrepresenting my pastoral approach.

Well your the one who is saying that a parents experiences are irrelevant to their behaviour and situations.

To some degree, I think it is.

Most of why people stop abusing is due to practical support and not particularly about beliefs. For example when a distress parents with unreal beliefs and expectations who is behaving inappropriately towards their child recieves therapy the abuse eventually stops. As your link mentions psychiatrict patients who recieved treatment became less of a abuse risk.

As my links showed when disadvantaged parents are given resources and support the abuse deminishes. You can't change beliefs and attitudes unless you change the psychological mindset that has been cultivated to believe in abuse and violence.

??

Just as the previous reply is saying that its addressing the psychological state of the person which changes beliefs and attitudes and not addressing the belief itself. Addressing the beliefs and attituides means addressing the psychological mindset of the person because the belief is caused by the psychological mindset which has been cultivated through personal experiences.

Do you not believe in repentance?

So your advocating repentence for society to overcome abuse. Repentence is often about being reshaped into a new person, the renewing of the mind. Most of the time this is a long process.

You don't tell an addict to repent as they will run away. But you can get them to admit they have a problem and that their life has become unmanagable. Then its about therapy, looking at self, the negative experiences that underly the behaviour. Its addressing these that the hold beliefs and behaviour have over people that will broken.

In other words negative beliefs that lead to negative behaviour have a lot of negative experiences and the resulting negative impacts on thinking and emotions behind them. Like I said you have to earn your beliefs, they don't come easy. You have to be primed to believe in them.

I'm not talking about making someone conform to something they're not ready to acknowledge. I'm talking about helping them to be ready to acknowledge it.

Yes and to do that means lifting the lid on whats going on inside the person, their negative thinking, feelings and perceptions. What happened that they come to a point where they are acting so destructive and not constructive.

I completely disagree. Correlations, associations, risks and so on are mostly statistical artefacts, and irrelevant.

Then you have just wiped out all child organisations that help and protect children and support parents as well as every other research and approach that uses the risk and protective factors for every other social behavioural problem regarding health and wellbeing.

No, they really aren't. The PRIBS measures a lot that is not related to abuse, and does not measure all the attitudes/beliefs which underpin abuse.

What is this so called "a lot" that is not related to abuse. Give me some examples.

Saying the PRIBS doesn't measure abusive beliefs and attitudes of parents is like saying a an anxiety scale doesn't measure the most important anxiety disorders.

Link your evidence, because from what I can see, there is only partial overlap.

I just gave it to you. What you need to do is explain why say 'Demandingness' which is the core beliefs behind ideas like rigid roles and abusive controlling hierarchies is not a measure for those beliefs.

What is it that makes roles rigid. Is it the role itself or the thinking behind the idea. Its the thinking, the cognitive ddistortions and mindset. This is exactly what the PRIBS especially Damandingness is measuring, the rigid and controlling mindset and it describes that mindset of rigid and controlling in its thinking and beliefs about the world. It takes a person with this mindset to come up with the idea of using roles and hierarchies to abuse and control.

I even went to the trouble of creating a Venn diagram to illustrate the situation.

No all you did was link a pretty picture of a Venn diagram with no link to what it was referring to. Therefore the pretty Venn means nothing but a couple of overlapping circles. You then made up some stuff about the PRIBS not covering abusive and controlling parental beliefs also without a shred of evidence or reasoning explaining how exactly this is the case.

My point is that demandingness relates to these things; the other attributes measured by the PRIBS do not.

Yes they do in varying degrees. If you look at the mindset, the thinking and perceptions behind the other core beliefs we can find that aspects depending on the individual and their personality type and traits as well as the particular experiences which will determine how parents see themselves, others and the world these other core beliefs relate exactly to why parents behave inappropriately and abuse their children.

For example the core belief of Low Frustration Tolerance has been linked to abusive and controlling parenting ie

Among components of Low frustration tolerance (LFT) are emotion intolerance, behavior intolerance, discomfort intolerance, rules intolerance, entitlement (intolerance of unfairness and frustrated gratification), achievement intolerance (intolerance of frustrated achievement goals), uncertainty intolerance, ambiguity intolerance, etc.

Low frustration tolerance (LFT) Trait-like emotional distress (i.e., high levels of 11 depression or anxiety) is a marker of vulnerability to psychopathology. Irrational beliefs tend 12 to be higher when trait emotional distress is elevated (e.g., Deffenbacher et al., 1986; Chang, 13 1997).

Low frustration tolerance is a secondary irrational belief, and research indicates that it is positively associated with aggressive expression of anger (Martin and Dahlen, 2004), reduced anger control (Moller and Van der Merwe, 1997), poor social adjustment (Watson et al., 1998), addictive behaviors (Ko et al., 2008), anxiety, depression, procrastination, and dysfunctional affect (Harrington, 2005b, 2006).
Frontiers | Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), Irrational and Rational Beliefs, and the Mental Health of Athletes

Comfort (and low frustration tolerance): I can’t stand hassles in my life. Approval (and low frustration tolerance): When people who I want to like me disapprove of me or reject me, I can’t bear their disliking me.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244013484156?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.2

Across these studies, low frustration tolerance was associated with increased physical child abuse potential, greater use of parent-child aggression in discipline encounters, dysfunctional disciplinary style, support for physical discipline use and physical discipline escalation, and increased heart rate.

Analog assessment of frustration tolerance: association with self-reported child abuse risk and physiological reactivity - PubMed

Although frustration has long been implicated in promoting aggression, the potential for poor frustration tolerance to function as a risk factor for physical child abuse risk has received minimal attention. Instead, much of the extant literature has examined the role of anger in physical abuse...

pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov

CHILD ABUSE WAS SIMULTANEOUSLY FOUND TO BE AN IMPULSIVE, UNCONTROLLABLE ACT AND A SYSTEMATIC PATTERN OF PUNISHMENT AND COERCION TO MODIFY THE CHILD'S BEHAVIOR. GENERALLY, THE RESULTS OF THE INVESTIGATION DESCRIBED IN THIS BOOK DEPICT THE CHILD ABUSER AS A HIGHLY DEPENDENT INDIVIDUAL WITH A LOW FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE.

DEPENDENCY, FRUSTRATION TOLERANCE, AND IMPULSE CONTROL IN CHILD ABUSERS | Office of Justice Programs

www.ojp.gov

These exactly relates to how parents who use physical punishment are strict minded, intolerance for breaking rules and misbehaviour, a feeling entitlement and a fixation on achievement and frustration with misbehaviour to the point of being stimulated to act harshlt against the child.

This feeds into the other 2 core beliefs of Awefulizing and Global Evaluations of self or self downing. These I think are more about the distress, the low self worth and esteem which often comes with depression and anxiety. Beliefs about self efficacy and locus of control where abusive parents seem to have an external locus of control.

That is why so many of the articles I linked were talking about low self esteem, low self efficacy and distress. This is what feeds into the unreal perceptions and expectations, the threat which in turn feeds into the Demandingness and Low Frustration Tolerance as these are the end result where the parent is trying to control the world, the child, the partner and others to managed that unreal perceieved threat or unfairness or expectation.

Awfulizing (and achievement): If I do not perform well at things which are important, it will be a catastrophe.
Global rating (and Approval): If important people dislike me, it goes to show what a worthless person I am.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2158244013484156?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.2

The idea of the PRIBS is for a clinical scale to measure the core irrational beliefs through measures on how the parent thinks in regards to volnurability for irrational beliefs. So its not the specific beliefs but the mindset that is open to irrational beliefs aboyt parenting.

In that sense we have a clinical measure to identify parents who are volnurable to irrational thinking and beliefs with clear patterns of thinking and schemas that relate to controlling thinking and parenting. In other words if a parent does not display the patterns of thinking, schemas and unreal expectations about self, others and the world then they will not be open to irrational beliefs like rigid roles and abusive and controlling hierarchies.

So in that sense the belief itself doesn't tell us about which type of mindset or physhe is volnurable to abuse and control but rather the thinking patterns and schemas that can be identified using the belief scales like the PRIBS and PIBS.

 

[Paidiske]

I am pointing out that your saying a hierarchy itself is abusive and controlling. I am saying with these examples they they are not in themselves and it takes an abusing person to make them so.

But by hierarchy we are not talking about some arbitrary ranking on an abstract measure. We are talking about relationships with a power differential.

We went through the rigid roles of household settings. A trad marriage has rigid roles but is not controllong in an abusive way.

If the roles are so rigid that they are not open to renegotiation as desired, then yes, they are controlling in an abusive way.

We only know these beliefs because of the abuse. But beforehand we didn't. There was no way to tell which beliefs were negative and led to abuse. So theres no way to tell which beliefs will lead to abuse in the future until they actually are linked to abuse. Its always hindsight.

So what? Sure we might learn more in the future. We can work on what we know now, instead of refusing to acknowledge it.

But we can tell the risk factors because we understand how humans think and behave and that certain thinking and psychological disorders do lead to bad behaviour through the science.

But we know this about the beliefs and attitudes which underpin abuse!

Except if someone has a belief in hierarchies which is often subconscious and natural we cannot say that belief is hierarchies is abusive and controlling.

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "natural" belief. All of it is conditioned and learned.

Meanwhile, we can certainly say that belief in hierarchies is part of the cluster of beliefs which underpin abuse.

Its only grounding beliefs in what actually happens and not speculating which beliefs are negative and abusive that we can know for sure which beliefs are abusive and controlling in a negative way.

But that's what we've done. We know which beliefs differentiate abusers from non-abusers. We know for sure which cluster of beliefs underpins abuse.

I think this language and narrative is damaging in itself as you keep conflating that hierarchies themselves are part of the problem.

Well, they are, in that they normalise and legitimise relationships of control. They are one expression of a cultural norm which conditions the beliefs which underpin abuse.

No we havn't.

Yes, we have.

The same beliefs in hierarchies and rigid roles can be shown to not be abusive.

Then show it. With actual evidence, not just your own claims.
You might like to start with responding to this: The issue | Our Watch | Preventing violence against women

"Promoting and enforcing rigid and hierarchical gender stereotypes reproduces the social conditions of gender inequality that underpin violence against women."

And this: https://www.anrows.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/NCAS-report-2018.pdf

"When the influence of the individual gender equality themes on attitudes towards violence against women is examined, the measures of ‘denying gender inequality is a problem’ and ‘promoting rigid gender roles, stereotypes and expressions’ have the strongest influence on attitudes towards violence against women."

"Particular expressions of gender inequality consistently predict higher rates of violence against women:
1. Condoning of violence against women
2. Men’s control of decision-making and limits to women’s independence in public and private life
3. Rigid gender rols and stereotyped constructions of masculinity and femininity
4. Male peer relations that emphasis aggression and disrespect towards women."

"What are attitudes supportive of violence towards women and gender inequality?...
rigid gender roles, stereotypes and expressions – the idea that men and women are naturally suited to different tasks and responsibilities, and have naturally distinctive – often oppositional – personal characteristics (e.g. ‘women are emotional and are therefore better child carers’, while ‘men are rational and are therefore better politicians’)."

It is partly why they abuse

No, sorry. I reject that utterly. People don't abuse because they're disadvantaged.

All and I repeat all the evidence states that the negative experiences of a person and the distress and other factors or determinants linked to abuse are exactly why parents abuse.

No, sorry, that's not what all the evidence shows, at all. Some people claim that, but there is very flimsy evidence for it, and strong evidence for other influences on why people abuse.

Well your the one who is saying that a parents experiences are irrelevant to their behaviour and situations.

That's not at all what I'm saying, either.

Most of why people stop abusing is due to practical support and not particularly about beliefs.

Evidence is required for this kind of claim.

For example when a distress parents with unreal beliefs and expectations who is behaving inappropriately towards their child recieves therapy the abuse eventually stops.

As if therapy doesn't impact our thinking and attitudes...

As my links showed when disadvantaged parents are given resources and support the abuse deminishes.

Reports diminish. That's not the same thing.

Just as the previous reply is saying that its addressing the psychological state of the person which changes beliefs and attitudes and not addressing the belief itself. Addressing the beliefs and attituides means addressing the psychological mindset of the person because the belief is caused by the psychological mindset which has been cultivated through personal experiences.

It's not that simple. It's not just psychological mindset, there is a whole complex interplay of all sorts of things which shapes beliefs and attitudes.

So your advocating repentence for society to overcome abuse.

In effect, changing beliefs and attitudes is a form of repentance.

Most of the time this is a long process.

I don't believe I have suggested otherwise.

You don't tell an addict to repent as they will run away.

In general, I've observed that "telling" anyone to repent is not effective.

Yes and to do that means lifting the lid on whats going on inside the person, their negative thinking, feelings and perceptions. What happened that they come to a point where they are acting so destructive and not constructive.

Sure. But every person's story is different, and you can't assume beforehand what those experiences will be, or even that it's all about "negative" thinking etc.

Then you have just wiped out all child organisations that help and protect children and support parents as well as every other research and approach that uses the risk and protective factors for every other social behavioural problem regarding health and wellbeing.

Not at all. But I have been pointing out, throughout the thread, that many of the assumptions underlying various claims about "causes" or "risk factors" are fairly well unfounded.

What is this so called "a lot" that is not related to abuse. Give me some examples.

We agreed that demandingness was the trait measured by the PRIBS that was related to the attitudes and beliefs which underpin abuse. The other traits measured by the PRIBS are not.

Saying the PRIBS doesn't measure abusive beliefs and attitudes of parents is like saying a an anxiety scale doesn't measure the most important anxiety disorders.

The PRIBS doesn't measure acceptance of violence, for example.

What you need to do is explain why say 'Demandingness' which is the core beliefs behind ideas like rigid roles and abusive controlling hierarchies is not a measure for those beliefs.

No, I agreed from our earliest discussing that "demandingness" was the area of overlap between the PRIBS and the attitudes which underpin abuse.

However, someone could take the PRIBS, score low on demandingness, score highly on the other measures (which aren't related to the attitudes which underpin abuse), and therefore have a high measure of irrational beliefs, and yet not hold the attitudes and beliefs which underpin abuse.

What is it that makes roles rigid. Is it the role itself or the thinking behind the idea.

It's the belief and assumption that different people have different responsibilities, tasks, and relational obligations based not on personal traits or relationships but place in the household structure.

Provided the role is flexible - that tasks, responsibilities, relational obligations and so on are able to be negotiated and changed - then they are not rigid, and the structure is not abusive.

It takes a person with this mindset to come up with the idea of using roles and hierarchies to abuse and control.

Not really. There are plenty of people who accept and use these structures who are not engaged in irrational thinking on those measures.

You then made up some stuff about the PRIBS not covering abusive and controlling parental beliefs also without a shred of evidence or reasoning explaining how exactly this is the case.

I explained it very clearly. Of the traits measured by the PRIBS, only demandingness has any clear relationship to the attitudes and beliefs which underpin abuse. I don't know how many times I have said this, or how I could have said it more clearly.

For example the core belief of Low Frustration Tolerance has been linked to abusive and controlling parenting ...

What you go on to quote there is not discussing parenting; it's a study of the mental health of athletes, and the only mention it makes of abuse is the abuse of alcohol.

The next article is discussing a refinement of a clinical scale, and does not mention abuse, and only mentions studies of parenting as providing useful data for that refinement of the clinical scale.

The third one notes a correlation between low frustration tolerance and abuse risk, but notes that the processes underlying this correlation need further investigation.

That's not really showing that clinical scales of irrational beliefs are a good measure of the beliefs and attitudes which underpin the physical abuse of children!

This feeds into the other 2 core beliefs of Awefulizing and Global Evaluations of self or self downing. These I think are more about the distress, the low self worth and esteem which often comes with depression and anxiety. Beliefs about self efficacy and locus of control where abusive parents seem to have an external locus of control.

These have nothing to do with the attitudes which underpin abuse, though. Nothing about self downing or awfulising relates to acceptance of violence, or rigid roles, or hierarchy and control.

The idea of the PRIBS is for a clinical scale to measure the core irrational beliefs through measures on how the parent thinks in regards to volnurability for irrational beliefs.

But what it is not, is a clinical scale to measure the beliefs and attitudes which underpin abuse.

In other words if a parent does not display the patterns of thinking, schemas and unreal expectations about self, others and the world then they will not be open to irrational beliefs like rigid roles and abusive and controlling hierarchies.

I still don't buy the claim that these are "irrational" beliefs. They are perfectly rational in a society which normalises them.

So in that sense the belief itself doesn't tell us about which type of mindset or physhe is volnurable to abuse and control

Well, if we had a clinical measure for those beliefs, it certainly would.

 

[stevevw]

But this is not what we are talking about, when we talk about hierarchy as a driver of abuse.

I think its important to clarify that hierarchies themselves are not controlling or abusive and that it takes a human to make them abusive. Otherwise people get the wrong idea that because some may support a hierarchy and assumed to be abusive or natural hierarchies are made to be bad when they are not.

These, too, can be problematic.

But not automatically problematic just because the roles are rigid or controlling. They are rigid and controlling for good reasons, to ensure better functioning according to the objectives.

But we are speaking of rigid roles in a household setting.

Heres the problem I have with this ambigious idea of beliefsbeing the measure of what is regarded as abusive. You say rigid roles in the household are abusive.

As mentioned there is a trend towards TRad marriages where the wife is the homemaker and rearing the children and the husbands is out working to support the family.

Now according to Woke secular ideological beliefs this situation would be regarded as oppressive, denying the wife financial independence and freedom to persue her career. But to many Christians who are living Trad marraiges they are happier and believe this is a better setup for the children and everyone.

So whose belief is the right one. Just saying rigid roles or hierarchies are automatically abusive is wrong and unjustified and as you say is based on a value judgement and no value judgement should take precedent over another.

Sure. That's been my argument all through this thread. These beliefs and attitudes drive abuse, which is harmful.

Your missing the point. We can only identify the beliefs by the risk factors and not the beliefs themselves. Because we don't know if the belief will lead to abuse until it actually does. But even when it does people still promote that belief because to them its not abusive but actually good and helps people.

But we can study the actual beliefs and attitudes of perpetrators, and how they differ from others. That work has been done. That's how we know which beliefs and attitudes underpin abuse.

Actually studying the beliefs and attitudes of perpetrators means studying their cognitions and psychological states. Belief doesn't happen in a vacume. It happens in the mind which is determined by experiences and the conditions for which people are subjected to.

So you identify a parent has a negative belief. How do we change the mindset so that they change their negative beliefs to positive ones. Its not like learningf your abc's lol. We have to understand the psyche of the parent, what makes them tick and why they have developed such a destructful belief.

They are one part of the problem. On their own, they're not the whole problem. But we can tackle that part, alongside the other parts.

So long as we don't mistake health and normal roles and hierarchies as abusive and controlling. But we have already done this. So I don't trust the current ideology within mainstream society, the State and its agents at present who are socially engineeringsociety to be more equal according to some unfounded ideology based on identity politics and Marxism.

 

[Paidiske]

I think its important to clarify that hierarchies themselves are not controlling or abusive and that it takes a human to make them abusive.

I don't agree. Hierarchies - relationships of control - are, by definition, controlling.

But not automatically problematic just because the roles are rigid or controlling.

If they are rigid but voluntary, and someone can leave at any time, that kind of thing, maybe not. But in reality that is seldom the case; there are degrees of coercion in place (even if only the coercion of the threat of being unemployed).

Heres the problem I have with this ambigious idea of beliefsbeing the measure of what is regarded as abusive. You say rigid roles in the household are abusive.

As mentioned there is a trend towards TRad marriages where the wife is the homemaker and rearing the children and the husbands is out working to support the family.

Now according to Woke secular ideological beliefs this situation would be regarded as oppressive, denying the wife financial independence and freedom to persue her career. But to many Christians who are living Trad marraiges they are happier and believe this is a better setup for the children and everyone.

So whose belief is the right one. Just saying rigid roles or hierarchies are automatically abusive is wrong and unjustified and as you say is based on a value judgement and no value judgement should take precedent over another.

As I have said over and over, if the "trad" arrangement is entered into voluntary, is not used to disempower either partner (ie. both still have equal say in decision making, access to finances, and so on), and can be renegotiated as needed, then that's not hierarchical, it's not rigid, it's not controlling or abusive.

It's not the division of responsibilities that makes it abusive; it's whether the people concerned are free to choose differently if they so choose.

We can only identify the beliefs by the risk factors and not the beliefs themselves.

This is blatantly untrue. We can identify what people believe.

Because we don't know if the belief will lead to abuse until it actually does.

You can say that of anything. But we can identify whether a person holds the beliefs which will justify abusive behaviours.

So you identify a parent has a negative belief. How do we change the mindset so that they change their negative beliefs to positive ones.

I wouldn't use the word "negative," myself. But if a parent were flagged as holding the cluster of beliefs which underpin abuse, we could then, for example, provide them with supports tailored to helping them to recognise the issues inherent in that, and promote change. And that will look different for every person and every situation.

So I don't trust the current ideology within mainstream society, the State and its agents at present who are socially engineeringsociety to be more equal according to some unfounded ideology based on identity politics and Marxism.

Abuse prevention has nothing to do with Marxism, or identity politics. Quite the contrary, since abuse occurs in all demographics.

 

[stevevw]

But by hierarchy we are not talking about some arbitrary ranking on an abstract measure. We are talking about relationships with a power differential.

I suggest calling these abusive and controlling hierarchies and roles exactly what they are 'abusive and controlling hierarchies and roles'. Don't seperate the structure from the abuse. Just like abusive relationships and not just relationships are abusive.

The problem is there is ambiguity in what exactly is abusive when it comes to power differences. There can be power differences as a natural result of competency differences. If people gain power over others due to compentency then this is not abusive power.

Their compentency may put them in a more powerful position and make a difference in employment status, income, standard of life, maybe better health and education for family ect. The incompentent end up at the bottom of the hiearchy with no job, little income, poor health ect. Some will say they are priviledged especially if they are white and male. But if its based on merit then its not abusive.

If the roles are so rigid that they are not open to renegotiation as desired, then yes, they are controlling in an abusive way.

The point is the roles can still be rigid and negociable and they are not abusive. So in that sense rigid roles themselves are not abusive. It takes crossing a certain line to turn them into abusive. Until they do they are not abusive.

The danger is where ideologues assume these setups are abusive perse because of their ideological beliefs.

So what? Sure we might learn more in the future. We can work on what we know now, instead of refusing to acknowledge it.

You missed the point. The point is we should be able to understand belief enough to be able to identify the mindset and not the specific belief examples like belief in rigid roles or hierarchies.

By understand how minds develop irrational beliefs we have a clinical measure of the Mindset which is more volnurable and primed to believe negative and unreal ideas about parenting. Otherwise we are left with identifying the mindset by the particular expressions it applies like with rigid roles. We are left guessing until they actually abuse.

There could be right now people of influence who are cultivating negative beliefs which will end up leading to abuse. So the only way to identify the potential abusers is by grounding the measure in facts, in clinical measures of the type of cognitions and emotional dysfunction that is more volnurable to irrational and unreal beliefs that are condducive of supports abuse and violence.

But we know this about the beliefs and attitudes which underpin abuse!

But this is a subjective measure, open to interpretation. You were earlier arguing that abusers beliefs are rational. We cannot just say that certain beliefs are abusive when they are not always abusive. But we can know the clinical measure of an abusers mindset that is more likley to believe in such idead. Not just about roles and hierarchies but about everything.

I don't believe there is such a thing as a "natural" belief. All of it is conditioned and learned.

Then you are a social constructivist. Especially that you don't believe there is any such thing as natural beliefs. Natural beliefs can be for example when someone says "its only natural that we should know or to do". A commonsense or self evident truth. Like that stealing is wrong. We steal and we feel guilty, we have something stolen and we are upset. This is not learnt but certain moral truths come natural as we have a moral sense.

Then there is natural talen at the individual level. Some people are natural athletes, some artist and others good with people.

Then there is nature itself which is sort of linked to natural talent sometimes as for example certain races like Africans and Indigenous peoples are good at sports generally. Males maybe better at certain sports due to the natural differences.

But there are also natural processes like evolution which have a bearing. We formed societies from hunter gatherers and in doing so we evolved certain thinking and behaviours to enable us to get along and function better. But also on a social level some aspects of society are a natural conscequence of how humans think and behave.

Going back to natural hierarchies. We structure society in competency hierarchies because it helps society function better. We naturally place more competent people in higher positions because it works, we get better results. Its not a social construction because its like the law of avergaes. If something works, it works. Its like an unwritten law of nature that no other way will work because it will not benefit for survival.

Meanwhile, we can certainly say that belief in hierarchies is part of the cluster of beliefs which underpin abuse.

Hum I don't like how this tars natural hierarchies are part of abuse when they are not inherently part of abuse and rather only made abusive by humans. Like I said its like saying a car is abusive, is the vessel, the structure that abuses when its just a vessel that an abuser uses. Anyway I said this many times.

 

[Paidiske]

I suggest calling these abusive and controlling hierarchies and roles exactly what they are 'abusive and controlling hierarchies and roles'.

It's not that simple. Hierarchies and rigid roles in themselves are providing the foundations for abuse.

The problem is there is ambiguity in what exactly is abusive when it comes to power differences.

Not really. Any power differential used to control others (with some necessary caveats for the immaturity of small children) is abusive.

If people gain power over others due to compentency then this is not abusive power.

It's not having power that's abusive. Power - at its most basic, the ability to do things - is not the problem. It's power used to control others that's the problem.

The point is the roles can still be rigid and negociable and they are not abusive.

If they're negotiable, and open to flexibility and change, by definition they're not rigid.

So in that sense rigid roles themselves are not abusive.

Rigid roles - as social prescriptions used to limit and control people - are abusive.

The point is we should be able to understand belief enough to be able to identify the mindset and not the specific belief examples like belief in rigid roles or hierarchies.

But it's the specific beliefs which underpin abuse that are the problem. Someone could have high levels of demandingness in their psychological mindset, but as long as they don't accept the use of violence, and feel justified in controlling others, then that's not really a problem from the point of view of abuse prevention.

Otherwise we are left with identifying the mindset by the particular expressions it applies like with rigid roles. We are left guessing until they actually abuse.

Well, not necessarily. Rather than screening using a vague measure of "irrational beliefs," we could screen for the very specific beliefs which underpin abuse. That would be far more accurate.

There could be right now people of influence who are cultivating negative beliefs which will end up leading to abuse.

Of course there are. The examples are legion. That's part of what makes these beliefs cultural and social norms.

So the only way to identify the potential abusers is by grounding the measure in facts, in clinical measures of the type of cognitions and emotional dysfunction that is more volnurable to irrational and unreal beliefs that are condducive of supports abuse and violence.

Well, no. That's not the only way, and it's by no means the most potentially accurate way.

But this is a subjective measure, open to interpretation.

No more subjective than measuring people's propensity to irrational beliefs. It's just measuring the very specific beliefs which are relevant for this issue.

You were earlier arguing that abusers beliefs are rational.

Not exactly. I was saying that we cannot accurately characterise all abusers as irrational.

We cannot just say that certain beliefs are abusive when they are not always abusive. But we can know the clinical measure of an abusers mindset that is more likley to believe in such idead.

So, instead of screening for the actual beliefs which drive abuse, you want to take a step back and screen for the mindset that (you claim) makes it more likely that people might hold such ideas. And you think that will be more accurate? That makes no sense.

Then you are a social constructivist.

I'm not sure I'd accept that label.

Especially that you don't believe there is any such thing as natural beliefs. Natural beliefs can be for example when someone says "its only natural that we should know or to do". A commonsense or self evident truth.

I am rejecting the idea of "natural" beliefs, as opposed to learned and socially imparted beliefs. I don't believe we have an inborn propensity to believe certain things.

We steal and we feel guilty, we have something stolen and we are upset. This is not learnt

Of course it's learned. There are cultures where property is held in common, and there's no such concept as "stealing" at all.

We formed societies from hunter gatherers and in doing so we evolved certain thinking and behaviours to enable us to get along and function better.

You can only speak of "evolving" thinking and behaviours as "natural" if those things are genetically determined. But they aren't. They are social and cultural.

We structure society in competency hierarchies because it helps society function better.

Except, clearly, we don't. I mean, you and I live in a constitutional monarchy. Our king is king not because he is the most competent person to be king, but because he was the previous monarch's firstborn son. And I'd say there's very little evidence of true meritocracy in just about any area of life.

Hum I don't like how this tars natural hierarchies are part of abuse when they are not inherently part of abuse and rather only made abusive by humans.

Insofar as they are structures of control, then they are inherently part of abuse.

 

[stevevw]

But that's what we've done. We know which beliefs differentiate abusers from non-abusers. We know for sure which cluster of beliefs underpins abuse.

Yes but after the abuse has been committed. We need to know before the abuse is committed. Do you honestly think that abusive, rigid and controlling hierarchies and roles are the only situations abusers will use to abuse. How do we tell the abuse going on outside these two examples.

If we can only know which beliefs will lead to abuse after the horse has bolted then we are forecer playing catchup and abuse will happen before we can identify where it happens.

We need a clinical measure not of the ways abuse is expressed but rather a psychological profile of the abuser, the mindset, the psyche, the way they see the world as to why they choose to believe in such destructive and dysfunctional stuff.

Well, they are, in that they normalise and legitimise relationships of control. They are one expression of a cultural norm which conditions the beliefs which underpin abuse.

No not all the time and not particularly that often. Put it this way we spot the abusive control say within the law, politics, business, corporations, relationships and families but all these setups are legitimate, natural and normal for society.

The law for example, the police command setup, or a company setup is still hierarchal and we still support the structure as a good and normal part about how we should structure society and companies as it works. The abuse happens within these same structures but we don't get rid of the hierarchal structure.

We just put measures in place to stop people abusers those positions of power and control. But they are still positions of power and control in a good way that we need to function as a society. Get rid of the chain of command, the power of the law and there will be chaos.

Yes, we have.

This is funny. You give a 3 word reply without any reasoning explaining why "we have" while you cut off my reply into a 3 word reply leaving out my reasoning. Did you do that so you didn't have to give any reasoning to the part you cut out. As I cannot even argue against a 3 word statement that says nothing for me to reason with lol.

But no we don't have a ground for beliefs simply because belief is subjective. Tell me a ground and I will say its just a subjective value judgement as you keep saying lol. I can show the same belief you claim is abusive is not abusive. Its all subjective.

Then show it. With actual evidence, not just your own claims.

Its self evident that society forms natural hierarchies. I gave all that evidence earlier. Did you forget. A company forms a natural hierarchy in their mangagement structure. A power and strength hierarchy naturally forms based on varying levels of power and strength with the strongest and most powerful at the top and the weakest at the bottom.

Any compentency difference will form a hierarchy for any number of competencies like intellectual, social skills, building and construction, speed, beauty ect. Its natural for humans to value competency and give it varying status within a hierarchal structure or a structure that has levels of varying abilities which then bring differences in outcomes for those within each level.

Hierarchy serves as a fundamental structure that underpins the functioning of human societies. Its significance lies in its ability to maintain order, enhance efficiency, allocate resources, foster social cohesion, and facilitate adaptation. Hierarchical systems have been pivotal in shaping the course of human history, and their importance persists to this day.
A Fundamental Structure in Human Societies.

Social hierarchy constitutes a fundamental characteristic prevalent in the majority of existing societies. From the extensive literature regarding hierarchies, there are several important conclusions that can be drawn: (1) social hierarchies are a natural and necessary part of social groups; https://medium.com/@STATUSNFT/social-hierarchy-and-why-it-matters-b5b94a581432

Social status hierarchies are a fundamental dimension of social life and critical to social system survival, to be sure. The mechanisms of action of social behavior reside in the subconscious mind.
Social Status – Man in the Middle.

“Most social species organize themselves into hierarchies that guide each individual’s behavior,” Researchers know that an area of the brain called the medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) is responsible for representing social rank in mammals;
How the brain encodes social rank and “winning mindset” - Salk Institute for Biological Studies

Hard-Wired for Hierarchy
Now, researchers have found evidence that our brains may actually be hard-wired for hierarchy. And in fact, we may be wired to value the "top dog" over the people who rank below us.
Hard-Wired for Hierarchy.

Social groups identify themselves as a part of the group by immediately self-organising themselves into hierarchies. The hierarchy they exhibit is built on values such as their physical strength, power, influence within the group, skills that matter and the dominance level. As per neural findings, the status has an immense impact on one’s attention, memory, social interactions, and even on their physical and mental health.

Surprisingly social status is realised with the presence of a neural network that looks after emotions, reward processing and execution of responses. Like other non-human primates, humans use cues like physical strength to make status judgements, although on top of these primitive perceptual cues are cues that are developed on the neural level within humans such as literacy, job titles, asset values, etc.

While we have chemical compounds doing their job, our society plays a big role in how the thoughts about status perception are seeded inside our minds. As we learn to identify people based on their status, dominance, skill and physical strength since the early stage of our neural development it’s quite hard to overlook such learnings. Our brain tends to process every cue that others exhibit and we have a natural affinity for things that match either our subconscious or conscious search.

Assigning ranks and perceiving status cues come with ease for humans and other non-human primates.
https://culture.kissflow.com/the-need-and-inevitable-nature-of-social-hierarchies-c5ec80f8841b

Now, researchers for the first time have used brain imaging techniques to investigate how people respond to others of higher and lower status. The study suggests that our responses to these hierarchies are hard-wired into our brains. “
Social Status is Hard-Wired into the Brain, Study Shows

You might like to start with responding to this: The issue | Our Watch | Preventing violence against women

OK I will finish this post hear and have a read of your link. Looks interesting. Sorry for cutting up the posts in replying but I will get back to what I have missed if its relevant.

Thanks for putting up with me lol, only joking. No I like this debate its interesting and its not often that people are willing to engage so much that we can explore things.