Does Informal Social Control Deter Child Abuse? A Comparative Study of Koreans and Russians

Evidence that informal social control by neighbors is negatively associated with child maltreatment is increasing, but extant studies are almost entirely cross-sectional and observational. We developed an experimental protocol for this vignette study to assess the effect of perceived informal social control on self-estimated probability of physical child abuse. Probability proportional to size cluster sampling of neighborhoods was used to obtain an experimental sample of 100 fathers from Seoul and 102 parents from Novosibirsk. In the experimental protocol, participants were told that the informal social control of child maltreatment scale was the most important scale, and that they had hence been given an example of the form “filled out by a neighbor.” Participants were randomly assigned to high or low social control by neighbors, provided the questionnaire, and were debriefed afterwards. Random effects regression models found a significant interaction between the treatment and perpetrator status in Seoul. Informal social control appears to have the desired deterrent effect on those who have perpetrated abuse. However, consistent with forensic research on those who are incorrectly accused of crime, results for non-perpetrators did not conform to this pattern.