Corporal Punishment

Corporal punishment research has been a very active research area with conflicting results about whether or not corporal punishment is a detrimental behavior change procedure. Due to the fact that some individuals encourage people to carry out advocacy research with the intent to show corporal punishment is detrimental, one has to look carefully at corporal punishment research. There are well-controlled research investigations on both sides of the issue as to whether corporal punishment is effective.

Simons, Johnson, and Conger (1994) looked at the effects of strong physical punishment on 332 children when quality of parental was controlled for, and noted corporal punishment was unrelated to adolescent aggression, delinquency, and psychological well being.

Gunnoe and Mariner (1997) studied 1112 families adjusting for secondary variables such as baseline level of aggression, parental yelling, and parental praise over a five-year period and found frequency of spanking predicted less aggression in children. Lefkowitz, Walder, and Huesmann (1963) evaluated 875 eight year olds and found moderately spanked boys were much less aggressive than boys raised by permissive parents. Ten years later, they followed up on 427 of those children and reported spanking was not a predictor of psychological aggression in these children.

Straus, Sugarman, and Giles-Sims (1997) conducted a two-year study of children 6 to 9 years old to determine whether corporal punishment causes antisocial behavior problems. They claim they statistically controlled for parental deficiency and reported corporal punishment does appear to increase antisocial behavior. Straus has a public reputation of legally banning spanking whether the evidence supports such a position or not (Straus, 1994)

Unfortunately, Straus, Sugarman, and Giles-Sims also reported studies on corporal punishment show punishment produces negative effects such as depression, delinquency, spouse abuse, physical abuse, masochistic sex, and alienation. A substantial portion of the source he cited as providing these conclusions came from non-refereed books. They fail to refer to the substantial number of journal articles that provide empirical data that goes against their beliefs about corporal punishment. They did not attempt to explain the differences between their findings and contradictory finding of other journal articles. They say their findings suggest replacing corporal punishment with non-violent modes of discipline could reduce antisocial behavior in children and fail to mention any research showing permissive parenting produces much more antisocial behavior in children than corporal punishment.

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