Cinderella effect

Cinderella effect is the name for a phenomenon found in psychology: Child abuse and mistreatment is more common in families with stepparents. 

It is named after the fairy tale Cinderella, where a girl gets mistreated by her stepsisters and stepmother. Psychologists think this shows a bias towards kin. A person has fewer incentives to invest in a child that is not his or her direct offspring. 

P.D. Scott first used the term Cinderella effect, in a study he did in 1973: He studied 29 cases of babies who were  beaten to death in anger; he found that in 15 cases, the baby's stepfather was the killer.Daly & Wilson (1999), p. 33

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Category:Child abuse