This article discusses major issues in corporal punishment research and identifies directions for improvement of current knowledge about this disciplinary practice. Conceptual and methodological problems in existing corporal punishment research are discussed. The authors also highlight research challenges that lie ahead. These include the need for (a) an explicit and consistently used definition of physical punishment, (b) the development of an assessment procedure that includes the full range of variables important in understanding corporal punishment and its effects, (c) the evaluation of children's own perception of punishment, (d) the assessment of third variables, and (e) the evaluation of nonlinear relations between corporal punishment and child outcomes. The authors present parental acceptance-rejection theory's (PARTheory's) research agenda that attempts to address all these issues.

In this article we extend the ecological–exchange framework as a way of understanding cultural, cohort, and socioeconomic variations in how marriage partnerships are structured and experienced. Based on the integration of ecological and contextual perspectives and social exchange theories, this framework highlights both micro‐ and macro‐level factors that interact to shape the trends and trajectories of marriage relationships over time. We use the ecological–exchange framework to discuss future implications for research using exchange principles and focus on how close relationships are structured and experienced.

No abstract

This study explored the way in which remembered childhood experiences of maternal and paternal acceptance mediated and moderated the relation between perceived intimate-partner acceptance and the psychological adjustment of 222 youths and adults in Colombia and Puerto Rico. These variables were assessed through the use of self-report measures. Participants were involved in a significant intimate relationship at the time of the study. Results of bivariate correlations showed a positive and statistically significant association between both remembered maternal acceptance and intimate partner acceptance with psychological adjustment for both men and women. However, paternal acceptance only had a positive and significant correlation with women's (but not men's) psychological adjustment. Multiple regression analyses showed that for women (but not for men), remembrances of both maternal and paternal acceptance in childhood partially mediated the relation between perceived partner acceptance and women's psychological adjustment. Moreover, multiple regression analyses showed that the effect of remembered maternal acceptance moderated the relation between women's (but not men's) perceived intimate-partner acceptance and psychological adjustment.

No abstract