Coercive Cycles in Families

Politically, the term coercion typically refers to a process in which force or authority is used to compel certain outcomes. The coercive experience is almost always aversive, due to the infliction or threat of pain, and submissive behaviors are typical outcomes, enacted to maintain the status quo. In the larger context, the coercer usually symbolizes overwhelming power or moral authority. However, a quarter century of observation data and coding of sequential interactions in the homes of hundreds of families of typical and antisocial children have revealed the presence of a more subtle form of coercive cycle in families. Built around aversive experiences in families, the coercive cycle does not stabilize the status quo but brings about dramatic change. Typically, when engaged in the coercive cycle, both members of a dyad are changed, and extended immersion in this process can change all members of a family. Coercive behavior patterns among family members significantly generalizes to students' behavior in school.

Studies have shown the long-term outcomes for this type of coercion to be very disrupting. This coercion mechanism is of particular interest because the physically or morally weaker family member often controls the behavior of the other. In a majority of situations, the aversive events that control behavior tend to be psychological rather than physical. In family interactions, the aversive events that form the structure of the coercion mechanism consist of common unpleasant acts, such as scolding, arguing, teasing, putting down, yelling, and temper tantrums. Occasionally these events escalate to include a physical attack. These seemingly innocuous behaviors occur at high rates in families of antisocial children. Observation data collected in homes of clinical families showed that problem children performed aversive events about once every minute and a half. These overtures may lead, in turn, to a conflict or exchange with other family members. These conflict bouts occur about once every 16 minutes.

Results from early observation studies showed that some families were very irritable in their interactions with each other, whereas others were not. Whether this swirl of aversive events served any particular function was unknown. We eventually learned that the myriad irritable exchanges often served as the core for a coercion process that, over time, produced powerful changes in family members, including overt forms of aggression in young children.

The dyadic coercion process is built on the concept of negative reinforcement, where one family member's behaviors are maintained by the removal or avoidance of the aversive behavior of the other. The “classic form” of coercion begins with a conflict bout, when one member presents an aversive stimulus to some other member of the family. Example: A mother says to her two sons, “You two! Stop that fighting.” They continue. When the younger one begins to cry, she shouts at the older boy, “Stop hitting your brother,” and hits him with the flat of her hand until he begins to cry. He stops fighting with his younger sibling. As soon as the mother hits the older son, the fighting stops immediately. In this exchange, the mother has learned that her hitting behavior effectively removed the aversive stimulus, and thus she is more likely to resort to the same pattern of responding in the future. Hitting was negatively reinforced.

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