A sample of 497 students at the University of Costa Rica completed
a survey on perceptions and experiences with various forms of
punishment and experiences with sexual abuse during
childhood. Spanking was shown to be the most widely accepted and most
common form of discipline. The majority of the students considered
most types of punishment forms of abuse. This study lacks a comparison
group and cannot be generalized to the entire Costa Rican
population. The section on sexual abuse demonstrated that 32% of the
women and 13% of the men experienced some type of sexual abuse during
childhood. The abuse mainly occurred between the ages of 5 and 10, and
men were most often perpetrators.