In a large-scale meta-analysis of 88 studies, psychologist Elizabeth Thompson Gershoff, PhD, of the National Center for Children in Poverty at Columbia University, looked at both positive and negative behaviors in children that were associated with corporal punishment. Her research and commentaries on her work are published in the July issue of Psychological Bulletin, published by the American Psychological Association.
While conducting the meta-analysis, which included 62 years of collected data, Gershoff looked for associations between parental use of corporal punishment and 11 child behaviors and experiences, including several in childhood immediate compliance, moral internalization, quality of relationship with parent, and physical abuse from that parent , three in both childhood and adulthood mental health, aggression, and criminal or antisocial behavior and one in adulthood alone abuse of own children or spouse.
Ten of associations were negative such as with increased child aggression and antisocial behavior. The single desirable association was between corporal punishment and increased immediate compliance on the part of the child. The two largest effect sizes strongest associations were immediate compliance by the child and physical abuse of the child by the parent.
Gershoff believes that these two strongest associations model the complexity of the debate around corporal punishment. But, Gershoff also cautions that her finding does not imply that all children who experience corporal punishment turn out to be aggressive or delinquent.
Furthermore, studying the true effects of corporal punishment requires drawing a boundary line between punishment and abuse. The meta-analysis also demonstrates that the frequency and severity of the corporal punishment matters. The more often or more harshly a child was hit, the more likely they are to be aggressive or to have mental health problems. While the nature of the analyses prohibits causally linking corporal punishment with the child behaviors, Gershoff also summarizes a large body of literature on parenting that suggests why corporal punishment may actually cause negative outcomes for children.
