Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002).

Abstract

E. T. Gershoff (2002) reviewed processes that might mediate and contexts that might moderate the associations between corporal punishment (CP) and child behaviors and provided an account of the methodological weaknesses of the research reviewed in her meta-analyses. In this examination of Gershoff, the authors argue that the biases and confounds in the meta-analyses further limit any causal inferences that can be drawn concerning the detrimental "effects" of CP on associated child behaviors. The authors suggest that undesirable child outcomes are associated with CP because the construct marks inept harsh parenting and conclude that although the harmful effects of physical abuse and other extreme punishments are clear, a blanket injunction against spanking is not justified by the evidence presented by Gershoff.

The development of attitudes about physical punishment: An 8-year longitudinal study.

“…Individuals' attitudes vary widely regarding the appropriateness of physical punishment, with the majority of U.S. adults endorsing its use. In addition, social scientists continue to debate the research evidence and whether it supports or refutes notions about the effects of nonabusive physical punishment-for instance, that it is usually harmful or that it is usually effective (e.g., Baumrind et al, 2002;Gershoff 2002aGershoff , 2002b.…”

“…Parents' use of corporal punishment has received much attention in developmental psychology and social policy research because of concerns about its effects on children's physical, behavioral and mental health outcomes and because of links to physical maltreatment in some families (see Gershoff 2002a and2002b and comments by Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002;Holden, 2002;Parke, 2002), Children's social cognitions (e.g., attitudes, attributions) regarding the appropriateness of physical forms of discipline are thought to play important roles in the socialization processes and effects surrounding parental discipline practices (Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1990;Straus, 2001). In the current study, we examined the correlates of young adolescents' attitudes about physical punishment in a prospective longitudinal study spanning 5 to 13 years of age in an ethnically and socioeconomically diverse community sample.…”

The moderating effect of parental warmth on the association between spanking and child aggression: a longitudinal approach

“…Baumrind, Larzelere, and Cowan (2002) report that Gershoff's (2002) analysis was flawed because 58% of her effect size estimates came from crosssectional analyses and 65% did not discriminate between non-abusive and abusive physical discipline. In general, the literature that examines the effect of spanking on children's behaviour is filled with methodological problems, including measuring behaviour and discipline at the same time point, using the same source to report discipline and behaviour, and using a retrospective design (Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005).…”

Corporal Punishment of Children in the Jamaican Context

“…Contrarily, some researchers (e.g., Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002;Paolucci & Violato, 2004), have insisted that spanking be differentiated from abuse and conceptualized accordingly. For example, Paolucci and Violato (2004) defined spanking as physically non-injurious discipline administered with the intention of modifying the child's behavior.…”

“…Further, some research studies (e.g., Larzelere et al, 2010;Paolucci & Violato, 2004) have shown that non-abusive physical punishment can be beneficial to child outcomes or at the very least have no significant risk for adverse child development. Those researchers suggest that it is inept parenting and physical abuse that put children at risk for detrimental outcomes, not corporal punishment per se (Baumrind et al, 2002;Larzelere et al, 2010). Moreover, they have hypothesized that there might be variance in development outcomes as a function of the context in which the punishment is delivered.…”