Saturday, June 20, 2009

Poles quick to condemn yet excuse themselves

Poles condemn infidelity, divorce, child abuse and putting one’s parents into a nursing home, according to a recent CBOS opinion poll.

The poll shows that sixty six percent of Poles do not approve of divorce and 31 percent think premarital sex is wrong. Every fifth Pole disapproves of living together in a relationship without being married, yet twenty percent of those polled claim to be in such a relationship.

Ninety-one percent of those who participated in the poll think there is no justification for cheating in a relationship yet 26 percent of men and every fifth female admits to having been unfaithful at some point or another in their relationship, according to research carried out by sexology professor Zbigniew Izdebski.

Poles similarly do not approve of putting their elderly parents in a nursing home. The CBOS poll shows that such an idea would not even cross 84 percent of Poles minds.

Ninety-five percent of Poles think that beating their child is bad and can never be justified.

“It is a paradox,” explains social psychologist Janusz Czapinski. According to Czapinski, Poles do not recognize their ‘sins’ and rather tend to find explanations for them. “Beating children is associated, for us, with dramatic violence, so we never think that we actually cross those barriers. […] Everything is a question of definition,” adds the psychologist.
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