Corporal Punishment
Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment, including spanking, slapping, paddling, or the prolonged maintenance of a physically uncomfortable position, can be defined as the intentional infliction of physical pain in response to a child’s misbehavior that has the goal (whether it is met or not) of correcting the misbehavior. A complicated and controversial issue, however, is where to draw the line between corporal punishment and physical abuse. Incidents of physical abuse often develop out of parents’ disciplinary behaviors. For example, routine discipline may cross the line to become physically abusive if parents cannot control their anger, are unable to judge their own strength, or are unaware of children’s physical vulnerabilities. Nonabusive parents are likely to tailor their punishments to children’s misbehaviors, but abusive parents appear to use physical punishment indiscriminately. Moreover, physical abuse appears to be part of a constellation of parenting behaviors that also includes authoritarian control, anxiety induction, and a lack of expressed warmth toward the child.
One argument is that any form of corporal punishment constitutes physical abuse. Indeed, several countries have outlawed the use of corporal punishment. In 1979 Sweden became the first country to do so, adding a provision to the Parenthood and Guardianship Code stating, “Children are entitled to care, security and a good upbringing. Children are to be treated with respect for their person and individuality and may not be subjected to corporal punishment or any other humiliating treatment.” Prior to the 1979 ban, more than half of the Swedish population believed that corporal punishment was necessary in child rearing; just two years after the ban, the rate was reduced by 50 percent, and by 1996, the rate was down to 11 percent. Decreases in rates of use of corporal punishment have accompanied changes in attitudes about its use (from nearly 100 percent before the ban to 40 percent by 2000). Several other countries, including Finland, Denmark, Norway, Austria, Cyprus, Latvia, and Croatia, have also outlawed the use of corporal punishment. Beginning in 1990 with the Convention on the Rights of the Child, the United Nations has placed the protection of children’s rights at the forefront of issues before the international community. More recently, the United Nations has launched a global study of violence against children. In his interim report to the General Assembly in October 2005, independent investigator Paulo Pinheiro stated that the “objective of the study must be to ensure that children enjoy the same protection as adults. It will challenge social norms that condone any form of violence against children, including all corporal punishment, whether it occurs in the home, schools and other institutions.”
Despite the banning of corporal punishment in several countries and the movement against its use in the international community, about 75 percent of American parents endorse the use of physical discipline, and over 90 percent of parents have used physical discipline with their children (Straus 1996). Individuals who argue that corporal punishment can be used effectively without constituting abuse suggest that corporal punishment should not be overly severe, that parents should be under control and not in danger of “losing it” from anger, that punishment should be motivated by concerns for the child rather than parent-oriented concerns, and that it should be used privately after a single warning with children ages two to six years and accompanied by reasoning (Larzelere 2000).
Across a wide range of countries, males are more likely to endorse the use of corporal punishment than are females, and parents are more likely to use corporal punishment with boys than with girls. Other demographic variables are also related to the likelihood of using corporal punishment. In particular, lower socioeconomic status, having more children, and being affiliated with a conservative Protestant religion are all related to using corporal punishment more frequently. African American parents have been found to use more corporal punishment than European American parents, even after controlling for socioeconomic status.
Cultural norms and parent-child relationships appear to affect how the experience of corporal punishment is related to children’s adjustment. Certain family and cultural contexts may moderate the association between parents’ behavior and children’s adjustment to the extent that they influence children’s construal of the parents’ behaviors. Children who regard corporal punishment as a frightening experience in which their parents are out of control and acting in a way that is not accepted in their cultural context may interpret the experience as parental rejection (especially in the context of a parent-child relationship that is lacking in warmth) and may respond by escalating externalizing behaviors. On the other hand, children who regard spanking as a legitimate form of discipline that is normative in their cultural context may not interpret the experience of corporal punishment as their parents’ rejection of them (especially if the parent-child relationship is generally characterized by warmth), and corporal punishment in this context may not be associated with elevated levels of behavior problems. Ethnic differences in the meaning that children attach to being corporally punished may explain why corporal punishment is related differently to their subsequent externalizing behavior. Among European Americans, parents’ use of physical discipline has been related to higher levels of subsequent behavior problems in children, but this association is attenuated or reversed for African Americans. The finding has been replicated using different data sets and measures and controlling for potentially confounding variables. One purported explanation of these ethnic differences is that corporal punishment is more normative for African American than for European American families, which alters the meaning of corporal punishment to the child (Deater-Deckard and Dodge 1997). There is also some evidence that corporal punishment and children’s adjustment can be unrelated, if one takes into account parental characteristics such as warmth and involvement, which may offset the potentially deleterious effects of corporal punishment. For example, Vonnie McLoyd and Julia Smith (2002), who examined data from the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth, found that only in the context of low levels of maternal support did spanking predict an increase over time in mother-reported internalizing and externalizing problems.
In a study that addressed the normativeness hypothesis directly, findings from six countries (China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand) revealed that countries differed in the reported use and normativeness of corporal punishment and in the way that corporal punishment was related to children’s adjustment (Lansford et al. 2005). More frequent use of corporal punishment was less strongly associated with child aggression and anxiety when it was perceived as being more culturally accepted. In countries in which corporal punishment was more common and culturally accepted, children who experienced corporal punishment were less aggressive and less anxious than children who experienced corporal punishment in countries where corporal punishment was rarely used. In all countries, however, higher use of corporal punishment was associated with more child aggression and anxiety regardless of the level of acceptance.
A paradox is that although individual differences in corporal punishment do not strongly predict individual differences in child aggressive behavior within cultures for which corporal punishment is relatively normative, cultures in which corporal punishment is normative have higher levels of overall societal violence. Carol and Melvin Ember’s 2005 analysis of ethnographies from 186 preindustrial societies found rates of corporal punishment use to be higher in societies that also had higher rates of homicide, assault, and war. Within the United States, corporal punishment is used more frequently in the South than in other regions, which is quite likely a reflection of the South’s greater acceptance of a “culture of violence” that encompasses higher homicide rates as well as milder forms of violence.
SEE ALSO Child Development; Children; Parenting Styles; Violence
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Deater-Deckard, Kirby, and Kenneth A. Dodge. 1997. Externalizing Behavior Problems and Discipline Revisited: Nonlinear Effects and Variation by Culture, Context, and Gender. Psychological Inquiry 8 (3): 161–175.
Ember, Carol R., and Melvin Ember. 2005. Explaining Corporal Punishment of Children: A Cross-Cultural Study. American Anthropologist 107 (4): 609–619.
Lansford, Jennifer E., et al. 2005. Cultural Normativeness as a Moderator of the Link between Physical Discipline and Children’s Adjustment: A Comparison of China, India, Italy, Kenya, Philippines, and Thailand. Child Development 76 (6): 1234–1246.
Larzelere, Robert E. 2000. Child Outcomes of Nonabusive and Customary Physical Punishment by Parents: An Updated Literature Review. Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review 3 (4): 199–221.
McLoyd, Vonnie C., and Julia Smith. 2002. Physical Discipline and Behavior Problems in African American, European American, and Latino Children: Emotional Support as a Moderator. Journal of Marriage and the Family 64 (1): 40–53.
Straus, Murray A. 1996. Spanking and the Making of a Violent Society. Pediatrics 98 (4S): 837–842.
Jennifer E. Lansford