Compliance gaining on prime time family programs

Abstract

Parent and child characters on 18 prime time programs were coded for their compliance gaining behaviors. Although a wide array of behaviors were observed across episodes, simple statements, reasons, and commands accounted for 68.2% of all coded behaviors. Situation comedies were more likely than dramas to have family characters attempting to gain compliance, but the pattern of usual strategies was consistent. Parents most often attempted to gain compliance and were more likely to be successful than unsuccessful. The opposite pattern emerged for child characters. Results are compared to an observational study of” real life” parental compliance gaining attempts.