Subject: Five Studies: Spanking Linked to Harmful Effects

Five recent (1997 to 1999) scientific studies have linked 
spanking to harmful effects while taking into account the
child's antisocial behaviour at time 1.
An article by Murray Straus summarizing and
discussing the results of these studies is summarized
here and can be found by following the instructions
at the bottom of this message.

Previous research showing a correlation between
spanking and undesirable behaviour or mental illness
could have been interpreted as not actually
proving a causal connection on the grounds that children
who tend to misbehave more tend to get spanked more.

However, these five new studies all used designs
that avoided that interpretation, confirming
that apparent harmful effects of spanking are not
just due to a tendency to misbehave that was
already present.

For example, in the Straus et al (1997) study,
the change in anti-social behaviour (ASB) over
a 2-year period was compared to amount of spanking.
The group with no spanking during a sample week
at the beginning of a 2-year period
had the best improvement over the 2-year period,
better than groups who were spanked once, twice,
or three or more times that week.  And that's
after taking into account the amount of ASB
at the beginning of the study.  In other words,
children who were not spanked that week were
compared with children with the same starting ASB
scores who were spanked that week.  Two years
later, on average, the ones not spanked during
the sample week had the best improvement in
behaviour.

A second study replicated the results of this
study.  

A third study looked at the relationship between
corporal punishment and children hitting their parents.
"Brezina found that CP [corporal punishment] at time 1 was 
associated with an increased probability of a child assaulting 
the parent a year and a half later."

A fourth study looked at CP and dating violence.
"Simons and his colleagues found that the more CP
experienced by these boys, the greater the probability
of their physically assaulting a girlfriend."

A fifth study looked at spanking and cognitive development,
and found that the less spanking, the more improvement
in cognitive ability there was over time on average.

The article discussing the results of these
important recent studies can be found as follows:

Starting from Murray Straus' home page
http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/

Under "PAPERS" follow the link to 
"Corporal Punishment (CP)".
The article is in the list of articles
and is number CP41, title given as
"The Benefits of Avoiding Corporal
Punishment: New and More Definitive Evidence".
(The title is slightly different as given
inside the article).  To be able to read
it, you need Acrobat;  this document reading
software is available for free.  The article is
also a chapter of a book:  the 2nd edition
of "Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal
Punishment by American Families and Its 
Effects on Children" by Murray Straus.
(The quotes I've given here were from
an earlier version of the same article and
may not be quite the same.)

Cathy Woodgold
http://www.ncf.ca/~an588/par_home.html


References   (The five landmark studies):

Murray A. Straus, David B. Sugarman, Jean Giles-Sims.
"Spanking by parents and subsequent anti-social behaviour of children."
Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine.  August 1997
v151 n8 p761(7).

Marjorie Linder Gunnoe and Carrie Lea Mariner, 1997.
"Toward a developmental-contextual
model of the effects of parental spanking
on children's aggression."  Arch Pediatr adolesc med vol 151 Aug 1997.

Simons, R.L.; Johnson, C. and Conger, R.D.  1994.  "Harsh Corporal
Punishment Versus Quality of Parental Involvement as an Explanation of
Adolescent Maladjustment."  _Journal of Marriage and the Family_
56:591-607.
   
Straus and Taschall (1988 August).  Corporal punishemnt
by mothers and child's cognitive development;  a longitudinal study.
Paper presented at the 14th World Congress of Sociology,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada.  Durham, NH:  Family Research Laboratory,
University of New Hampshire.

Brezina, T., 1998.  Adolescent-to-parent violence as an adaptation
to family strain:  An empirical examination.  Journal of Youth and Society,
submitted.