Why Conditional Parenting Principles Make It Hard to Like Mikan Tsumiki (ESSAY)

Many parents argue that they unconditionally love their children, which is true for most. The question is, are their actions consistent with this belief? Morris and other developmental psychologists conducted a 2002 study in which both children and adults were interviewed on conditional affection. They did not find a correlation between conditional parenting and child functioning when they interviewed the adults. When their children were interviewed, it was a different story. The child's experience with a discipline technique is an overwhelming determinant of externalizing and internalizing problems. This is not to say that responsibility rests on the children to view psychologically-controlling discipline more favorably. The responsibility squarely lies with the parents to communicate their unconditional love with skill. In contrast to conditional parenting, unconditional parenting leads to greater stability in adulthood. Adults who were treated with unconditional positive regard as children had significantly higher self-esteem, self-acceptance, and social confidence than those who weren't (Forsman, 1989).

The Rule of Reciprocity Is Meant to Be Broken

Punishment and reward embody the rule of reciprocity, frequently invoked in economics: you get something in return for something else. We would not want this to be true of friendships or care-based relationships. However, many authors give advice that exemplifies this belief. If children don't do what we want, we take away something they like. Oftentimes, love or happiness is taken away, as if those had to be earned in the first place. An "eye for an eye," as outlined in the Hammurabi Code. Primitive tribes have wiped each other out through this cycle of revenge.

When the level of parental care is made contingent upon a child's behaviors, their self-esteem ebbs and flows with their failures and successes. Others find these children emotionally unavailable because their self-worth is fickle. This requires constant energy and effort on oneself to replenish. In addition, their sense of justice is based on revenge rather than empathy, ensuring that yet another generation of problem children and criminals are not able to get their emotional needs fulfilled (Holt, 2004). If the vast majority of people agree with retributive justice, then that is how society will run.

From this transactive point of view, Mikan does not "deserve" positive regard. For some, her actions spoke louder than her backstory, even though her backstory screamed to be examined closely. Good behavior was never modeled for her before the events of Danganronpa 2. Her intense fear of being disliked and her anxious-attachment style were the only things holding her back from hurting others. Her kindness was coerced, not learned. She only learned how to avoid the harshest conceivable punishment and to grasp tightly onto the only shred of control she did have. Fear is the greatest external motivator, but psychological freedom is the greatest internal motivator and is more sustainable. Compulsive self-control in the absence of mental stability can only hold up for so long.

It would not be wrong to assume that proponents of Skinnerian manipulation would not want to "reward" her dysfunctional behavior. By their logic, making Mikan feel worthy and empathizing with her would encourage her to commit more unethical acts. However, she would not have committed those actions had she gotten love and acceptance from the people who were supposed to guide her. If nothing in her life changes, she may do even worse because her pain can only be perpetuated for so long. The cycle of pain is thus continued. Again, punishment fails on its own terms, but confused onlookers would push for harsher or different ones, akin to classrooms that use the green-yellow-red card behavior system. Think back to your childhood: did the red-card children ever improve their behavior, or was there something more going on in their homes? To add insult to injury, the idea of choice is invoked to justify negative responses to her. Is it reasonable to expect the same amount of accountability from an emotionally-unresourced person as someone with average mental stability? Children, even adults, must feel good to do good.