A Critique of Elizabeth Gershoff’s1 Overview of Research on Parental Corporal Punishment
Robert E. Larzelere, Ph.D., June 2002
The Crucial Questions
Dr. Gershoff’s 2002 review is very thorough, but fails to answer the crucial questions, even though it might appear to answer them. For parents, the crucial questions are:
- What are the effects of nonabusive spanking on children?
- Do they depend on the child’s age, situation, cultural context, etc.?
- If parents use spanking, what is the best way to use it?
- How do the effects of spanking compare with alternative disciplinary tactics that parents could use instead?
- How do punishments such as spanking support or undermine positive aspects of discipline and teaching?
Limitations of Gershoff’s Review: Severe Corporal Punishment & Misleading Associations
Dr. Gershoff’s review fails to answer these crucial questions because most of the studies (1) emphasize severe forms of corporal punishment and (2) base their conclusions on misleading associations with child outcomes. In most cases these problems were due to the studies with which Gershoff worked. Such a research approach would make any disciplinary tactic look bad. Examples:
- Most studies in her review included overly severe forms of corporal punishment in their study: e.g., “slapped on face,”2-8 being beaten,3,9,10 hit with a fist and causing bruises or cuts11.
- Most conclusions were based on misleading associations with outcomes, when those outcomes were actually caused by the child’s excessive misbehavior, not the parental response to the misbehavior. They are misleading because most(if not all) disciplinary tactics show the same associations with detrimental outcomes.
- The strongest evidence of detrimental child outcomes in her review was that spanking frequency in one year correlated 0.18 with one of five aggressive variables later on, on average.
- A few studies in Gershoff’s review used the same methods to study other disciplinary tactics as well as corporal punishment. They usually found more detrimental associations for alternative tactics than for corporal punishment! For example, there were four applicable studies of aggressive types of behaviors in children under 13 (using the studies’ statistics that are done the same for all disciplinary tactics and, where possible, minimizing problems pointed out by Baumrind et al., 2002).12
- Larzelere et al. (1998)13: Using the associations emphasized by Gershoff, the frequency of spanking 2- and 3-year-olds was associated with disruptive behavior 20 months later (r = .15, i.e., d = .30). But the frequencies of all other disciplinary tactics were over twice as strongly associated with more disruptive behavior 20 months later (nonphysical punishment, r = .31; reasoning, r = .47; “other”, r = .33). I call them “misleading correlations” because they make every disciplinary tactic look bad.
- [Radke-]Yarrow et al. (1968)14: corporal punishment was associated with less aggression in school two months later
(r = -.19), whereas 5 other disciplinary tactics averaged no association (r = -.02). - Sears (1961)15: physical punishment was associated with less antisocial aggression 2 years later (r = -.07), whereas 2 other tactics averaged no association (r = .00).
- Straus and Mouradian (1998)16: calm physical punishment was concurrently associated with more antisocial aggression and impulsivity (r = .07), whereas 3 other tactics were more strongly associated with those outcomes (r = .19).
Conclusion: It is the excessive child misbehavior that leads to a wide range of detrimental outcomes. The excessive misbehavior also causes parents to use all disciplinary tactics more frequently, not just spanking. The misleading associations used in Gershoff’s review would make any disciplinary tactic look bad, and thus cannot tell the difference between effective and counterproductive disciplinary methods.
Implications
Because of the above problems, the review does not answer the most important two questions:
Implications for Parents: Beyond Misleading Associations
Parents need better information about how to discipline their children in the most effective manner. Effective discipline is based on a foundation of a positive, loving parent-child relationship and uses proactive discipline skillfully. In responding to misbehavior, parents need to use milder disciplinary tactics skillfully. The most effective way to use spanking is to back up milder disciplinary tactics, such as reasoning and time out, with 2- to 6-year-old children. Research has shown that this strategy is not only effective in itself, but the child then cooperates with the milder disciplinary tactics, making the spank back-up less necessary as the child gets older.17 Nine studies support this with more conclusive evidence than mere associations.13 18-25. There is no evidence against this particular way of using spanking in a loving parent-child context. This combination of milder disciplinary tactics with spanking was more effective than 6 alternative disciplinary responses across these 9 studies, although two alternative combinations matched its effectiveness, on average.
References
1. Gershoff ET. Parental corporal punishment and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin 2002.
2. Mahoney A, Donnelly WO, Lewis T, Maynard C. Mother and father self-reports of corporal punishment and severe physical aggression toward clinic-referred youth. Journal of Clinical Child Psychology 2000;29(2):266-281.
3. Engfer A, Schneewind KA. Causes and consequences of harsh parental punishment: An empirical investigation in a representative sample of 570 German families. Child Abuse and Neglect 1982;6:129-139.
4. Lefkowitz MM, Walder LO, Eron LD. Punishment, identification and aggression. Merrill-Palmer Quarterly 1963;9:159-174.
5. Eron LD. Parent-child interaction, television violence, and aggression of children. American Psychologist 1982;37:197-211.
6. Eron LD, Huesmann LR, Zelli A. The role of parental variables in the learning of aggression. In: Pepler DJ, Rubin KH, editors. The development and treatment of childhood aggression. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum, 1991:169-188.
7. Eron LD, Walder LO, Huesmann LR, Lefkowitz MM. The convergence of laboratory and field studies of the development of aggression. In: De Wit J, Hartup WW, editors. Determinants and origins of aggressive behavior. The Hague: Mouton, 1974:348-380.
8. Eron LD, Walder LO, Lefkowitz MM. Learning of aggression in children. Boston: Little, Brown, & Co., 1971.
9. Levin H, Sears RR. Identification with parents as a determinant of doll play aggression. Child Development 1956;27:135-153.
10. Riggs DS, O’Leary KD. Aggression between heterosexual dating partners: An examination of a causal model of courtship aggression. Journal of Interpersonal Violence 1996;11(4):519-540.
11. Muller RT. Family aggressiveness factors in the prediction of corporal punishment: Reciprocal effects and the impact of observer perspective. Journal of Family Psychology 1996;10:474-489.
12. Baumrind D, Larzelere RE, Cowan P. Ordinary physical punishment – Is it harmful? Commentary on Gershoff. Psychological Bulletin 2002.
13. Larzelere RE, Sather PR, Schneider WN, Larson DB, Pike PL. Punishment enhances reasoning’s effectiveness as a disciplinary response to toddlers. Journal of Marriage and the Family 1998;60:388-403.
14. Yarrow MR, Campbell JD, Burton RV. Child rearing: An inquiry into research and methods. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1968.
15. Sears RR. Relation of early socialization experiences to aggression in middle childhood. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology 1961;63:466-492.
16. Straus MA, Mouradian VE. Impulsive corporal punishment by mothers and antisocial behavior and impulsiveness of children. Behavioral Sciences and the Law 1998;16:353-374.
17. Larzelere RE. Child outcomes of nonabusive and customary physical punishment by parents: An updated literature review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 2000;3(4):199-221.
18. Bean AW, Roberts MW. The effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 1981;9:95-105.
19. Day DE, Roberts MW. An analysis of the physical punishment component of a parent training program. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology 1983;11:141-152.
20. Roberts MW. Enforcing chair timeouts with room timeouts. Behavior Modification 1988;12:353-370.
21. Roberts MW, Powers SW. Adjusting chair timeout enforcement procedures for oppositional children. Behavior Therapy 1990;21:257-271.
22. Roberts MW. Resistance to timeout: Some normative data. Behavioral Assessment 1982;4:239-248.
23. Bernal ME, Duryee JS, Pruett HL, Burns BJ. Behavior modification and the brat syndrome. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1968;32:447-455.
24. Larzelere RE, Merenda JA. The effectiveness of parental discipline for toddler misbehavior at different levels of child distress. Family Relations 1994;43:480-488.
25. Larzelere RE, Schneider WN, Larson DB, Pike PL. The effects of discipline responses in delaying toddler misbehavior recurrences. Child & Family Behavior Therapy 1996;18:35-57.