The Library of Spanking Fiction: Wellred Weekly
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Articles
Items of interest regarding all things spanking
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The Psychology of Spankings - Part 2 Are Spankings Bad for Children? The debate over spanking children in the United States is a "hot button" issue because spanking children is at the ideological core of authoritarian social conservatism. As Roy Lessin insists in his spanking manual for children, spanking children is not optional. God commands parents to spank their children. Perhaps hampered by limited literacy and cognitive resources, unthinking fundamentalist Christian parents take as gospel the phrase, "Spare the rod and spoil the child." In fact, that phrase appears nowhere in the Bible. The verses that demand corporal punishment of children are found in the Old Testament, a collection of folklore from a nomadic desert tribe written thousands of years ago and repackaged over the years. The New Testament and especially the words attributed to Jesus Christ do not demand the sadomasochistic spanking of children. Setting Judeo-Christian folklore aside, the social scientific research on the harmful effects of spanking children falls into the same area of established scientific theory that links smoking to fatal diseases. That is, the bulk of the research shows that spanking children is no more effective than other parenting techniques for correcting short-term behavioral problems. The bulk of the research shows linkage between spanking children and long-term negative effects, including higher levels of aggression, depression, lower self-esteem, lower levels of empathy, lower intelligence, and so on. For a comprehensive repository of much of the research on spanking and children, see the scientific reports of the Family Research Center at the University of New Hampshire: http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/ Dr. Murray A. Straus is a sociologist at the Family Research Center at the University of New Hampshire. And yes, Dr. Straus did spank his own children. He now realizes the error of his ways. However, the pervasiveness of spankings makes it difficult to find anyone of Dr. Straus' generation who wasn't spanked or didn't spank. Problems With Empirical Research The difficulty of scientific research on spanking is inherent in the nature of empiricism. In the sciences, there is no such thing as a "proven" theory, only theories that have withstood numerous tests in the real world and continue to "fit" the data best. Spanking is an especially difficult subject area to study, because the most powerful tool in the social scientist's arsenal is the experiment. Experiments on spankings are difficult to design and execute. To provide the best research data on the positive and harmful effects of spankings, a social scientist should take a large group of expectant parents (a statistically representative sample of Americans), measure all kinds of psychological characteristics at the outset, and then assign the expectant parents to different treatment groups at random. Because each parent is assigned by chance to any one of the treatment groups, the groups are essentially the same at the outset (statistically equivalent).  One group of parents would be trained to never spank their children. No matter what their predispositions (fundamentalist Christians included), these parents would be taught (and required) to use only non-hitting approaches to parenting. A second group of parents would be trained to occasionally spank their children. Most spanking parents like to think this group describes them best. Spankings would be used only for the most egregious misconduct, only within a framework of clearly understood rules, never in anger, and always with an explanation before and after. Spankings would be limited to the open hand on the covered buttocks, with one swat for each years of the child's age. The pain or discomfort of the spanking would be fleeting, lasting no more than a few minutes. Spankings would be conducted in private. The third group of parents would be trained to frequently spank their children. These parents (pacifists included) would be trained using a secularized version of Roy Lessin's spanking manual. Spankings would be hard spankings, causing lasting pain. Spankings would be the primary form of correction for any form of deviance from parental expectations. Parents in this experiment would have to be closely monitored to ensure compliance to the treatment strategy. Data about the behavior of the children would be collected from the parents themselves, from teachers, and from others in positions to observe the children. Periodically, children would be brought into the lab where they would be exposed to various stressful situations to see if the negative consequences of spankings could be artificially induced under controlled conditions. Such an experiment would take about 30 years, so that the long-term positive and negative consequences could be scientifically documented. Such a study would provide the definitive answer to the long-term consequences of spankings. However, this experiment is unlikely to happen. Large sums of money would be required in order to assemble a large representative sample of Americans, perhaps as many as 1,000 per group. Experimental mortality, the dropping out of subjects from the experiment, would be a major problem. Adherence to the experimental treatment would also be difficult to maintain. Paying parents to stick to the experimental protocol, despite their misgivings, would help. Of course, if the bulk of the scientific evidence already shows that spanking children is harmful, then how could such a study be conducted ethically? Institutional review boards at most universities and research institutions would be reluctant to permit such research to be conducted. So the alternative is to measure naturally occurring spankings in the real world through survey research methods. There are two basic types of surveys: cross-sectional and longitudinal. A cross-sectional survey collects spanking data from respondents (either parents who spank or older children who were/are spanked) at a single point in time. At the same time, data can be collected on aggressive behavior, depression, low self-esteem, lack of empathy, risky sexual behavior (in teens), and so forth. The number and severity of spankings can be correlated with negative outcomes. But because the data is collected at one point in time, the correlations can't demonstrate causality. That is, correlations can't demonstrate that spankings cause anti-social behavior, for example. Maybe anti-social children just need more spankings. The anti-social behavior is the cause and the spanking is the effect. Further, both spankings and anti-social behavior may be the effects of other factors, such as poverty or living in a high-crime neighborhood. Impoverished, stressed-out fathers and mothers may be more likely to spank their children and also live in high-crime neighborhoods. Children living in an impoverished home in a high-crime neighborhood may be more anti-social because of those factors, not because they are spanked. Obviously, more research is needed. A longitudinal survey, involving the collection of data from a panel of parents (or their offspring) over time, helps sort out causes and effects. Spankings and aggressive, anti-social behaviors can be measured at Time 1, when Johnny and Mary are 5 and 4 respectively. Spankings and aggressive, anti-social behaviors can be measured again at Time 2, when Johnny and Mary are 10 and 9 respectively. Finally, spankings and aggressive, anti-social behaviors can be measured at Time 3, when Johnny and Mary are 15 and 14 respectively. This can help resolve some of the "chicken or egg" questions. In fact, several longitudinal studies have shown that it is the spankings at Time 1 that drive the anti-social behavior (and other negative outcomes) at Time 2 and not the other way around. A small number of studies have reached contrary conclusions. Clearly, more research is needed. Murray Straus has even suggested a modified experiment, as follows. Observe spankings and various outcomes at Time 1. Teach spanking parents alternative, non-violent parenting techniques. Observe the various outcomes (anti-social behavior, aggression, low-self-esteem, etc.) after the spankings stop. Of course, a better design would then induce parents to start spanking their children again, to see if the negative effects of spankings come back. That would require a "hard sell" among the reformed, non-spanking parents. Perhaps the only viable population for such a study, where spankings are stopped and then started again, would be single mothers in graduate school (especially in the fields of psychology, sociology, and the related social sciences). Because of their economic dependency on graduate research assistantships and fellowships, such young women could be persuaded to start spanking, stop spanking, and start spanking again, based on a predetermined schedule. Because of their economic dependency and commitment to discovering scientific truth, such women would be more than willing to make this contribution to the body of knowledge. Because a doctoral dissertation takes a minimum of five or six years, the use of strategic delays in completing the doctorate could provide researchers (i.e., the dissertation adviser) with a convenient population of children -- let us say from age two to age nine -- for purposes of controlled spankings that are systematically manipulated to tease out cause-and-effect relationships. So What's the Problem? Critics of Spanking Research  Diana Baumrind Dr. Baumrind's argument centers on what she refers to as "normative" spankings, which she distinguishes from abusive spankings. What exactly is a normative spanking? She conducted a small but lengthy 12-year study of about 100 parents in very liberal Berkeley, California. She found no demonstrable harm from "normative," non-abusive spankings. Buried in her research, however, is a rather important insight into her methodology. Her definition of a spanking included pats on the bottom that were not painful. Let's consider such a methodology applied to the question of the negative health impact of smoking tobacco. First, the researcher starts with a very small number of participants. This means that the harmful effects must be quite large before the sample would show any statistical significance (i.e., confidence that the findings generalize to the larger population and are not isolated idiosyncrasies of the sample). Then pick a geographic area where smoking is generally light (like picking Berkeley to study spankings). Then throw out anybody in this light-smoking community who is a heavy, "abusive" smoker. Finally, include all Bill Clinton types who smoke but don't inhale (like including spankings that don't hurt). Voila! The scientific case against the "normative" use of tobacco is a leaky dike, not a solid edifice. If a scientist conducted a study like Dr. Baumrind's to show no harm from tobacco use, we would immediately suspect that the tobacco companies funded the research. However, there is no corporate entity with a strong economic interest in research findings favorable to spankings. So why would a respected psychologist take the stance that has the practical effect of condoning all spankings of children? As often happens in the message simplification of a journalistic two-sided story, the "normative" use of spankings disappear in the headlines. In its coverage of Dr. Baumrind's 2001 study presented to the American Psychological Association, the headline in the New York Times declared, "Findings Give Some Support to Advocates of Spankings." Who are these spanking advocates? Well, Roy Lessin and his spanking manual come to mind. There's nothing "normative" about a Roy Lessin spanking. Without knowing her biography, one can only speculate as to the motivations of Dr. Baumrind. She may be motivated, in part, by the turf war between psychologists and sociologists. Sociologists look at the aggregate impact of "spankings" as they occur in large samples, without regard to the psychological mechanisms involved. Like epidemiologists, sociologists who study the impact of spankings are seeking to isolate effects in a sea of factors and influences (besides spankings) that affect children. Very large samples are required to tease out the negative effects of spankings from other covariates. Psychologists, on the other hand, are more interested in how the spanking is processed psychologically by the parent and child. This is a worthy scientific endeavor. Indeed, how a child processes the spanking psychologically is an important research question. And indeed, some children may process one of Dr. Baumrind's "normative" spankings as an infrequent, mildly unpleasant experience with no long-term consequences. However, even a "normative" spanking can traumatize certain children. Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) may affect only a small number of children spanked. The symptoms may remain suppressed in the mind for a very long time. Once PTSD is diagnosed in the teen or adult years, identifying the causes of childhood PTSD may require the use of such techniques as hypnosis and Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR) to get to the bottom of the trauma. And because American culture generally regards childhood spankings as benign, identifying spanking events as traumatic takes a very discerning therapist. continued...
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