> It’s an effective tool
Said no modern, respectable scientist who has studied the phenomenon within the last thirty years.
Said no modern, respectable scientist who has studied the phenomenon within the last thirty years.
...said some guy on a forum.
From 2006: https://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-1284596.pdf
https://www.unmc.edu/newsroom/2002/06/28/dr-larzelere-featur... - "There is general consensus that corporal punishment is effective in getting children to comply immediately while at the same time there is caution from child abuse researchers that corporal punishment by its nature can escalate into physical maltreatment," - E. T. Gershoff
The meta-analysis study that "decided things" in 2021: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34197808/
A critique to that point in 2022: A Response to Heilmann et al.’s (2021) Narrative Review - https://psyarxiv.com/5xbnm/download?format=pdf
Much like Abraham Wald pointed out in WWII, many studies are unintentionally magnifying the statistical outliers incorrectly. As Greg Wilson once said - (summarized) Gender inequity in science being biologically gender influenced is settled as false. The efficacy of corporal punishment is a scottish verdict.
The efficacy and/or benefit of corporal punishment, is undecided.
The last link you provided is a methodological critique of another study, and its authors are of questionable authority (for instance, a dev psych professor at a private Christian college).
Gershoff's contributions to the debate are not a singular paper.
https://www.unmc.edu/newsroom/2002/06/28/dr-larzelere-featur... includes a response from Robert E. Larzelere, Ph.D., which quotes Gershoff as the source of the quote referenced.
Or maybe, just maybe, go the other way and treat kids like people and avoid teaching them that abuse is normal.
Violence is the second most effective form of persuasion known to man, following shame.
We do use violence in limited fashion, around the world, today. In some societies, unmitigated violence was acceptable for a time. Why is it always curtailed? Unequivocally, murder is more effective at achieving settlement in many disputes. Expediency is not the only concern. Society is built on maintained relationships and mutual agreements, not wanton acts of passion to form networks that are more effective and stable than the individual.
Children are not considered fully informed or stable. Shame is difficult to instill, when there is no preconceived notion of social acceptance. Violence is the natural fallback. Is picking up a child and moving them out of the way of a vehicle, when they don't want to be moved, violence? No. Violence isn't simply an action, but the act and intention and efficacy. Modern societies have balanced these concerns for adults and children. Self-defense and purposeful administrative allowances for violence (police, army) are the norm.
The question of what the limits of perceived violence for children is optimal, is still debated.
What does? citation obv
A quick, preemptive edit:
If you take the time to get the ranked list of journals in developmental psychology and then search for this question in those journals, you'll find the consensus gets significantly stronger. As you've already shown us, if you instead go the other direction, and find un-reviewed papers co-authored by professors at private Christian colleges, you can find counterexamples.
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/news/uk/21/04/effect-spanking-br... - This study determines that spanking (as well as other stimuli, like observed violence) may influence behavior negatively. This is used as justification to determine that spanking is detrimental. The study does not expand this to corporal punishment overall, state sponsored or otherwise.
https://sites01.lsu.edu/faculty/pfricklab/wp-content/uploads... - This had 98 subjects recruited from two school systems in the southeastern United States.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3447048/ - This is basically a narrative summary of some existing studies, leaning heavily on -
* https://www.repeal43.org/docs/CP%20research%20US%20Nov%2012....
* https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5094178/pdf/nih...
* https://www.researchgate.net/publication/261705604_The_effec...
Getting access to papers directly is often troublesome, so there may be an additional step of clicking on a link to get the PDF. 2/3 of these papers focus on effects of pre-school corporal punishment (ages 2-6) exclusively, which is hard to correlate to the topic but provides solid evidence that corporal punishment (without qualification) for infants correlates to behavioral problems.
I would not agree that there is consensus nor is there conclusive data in regard to corporal punishment in schools (post-preschool). This is not an issue of convenience, but has large social implications. If you could provide something a bit more compelling, I'm open to it. I don't have a vested interest, other than a higher standard of proof, such that I can defend conclusive evidence.
I claim undecided.
You claim "broad consensus", for some value of broad that you have curated from sources...at least nothing beyond what I've cited.
I don't think anything has changed. GL
The greatest generation that built this country into what it is were subject to corporal punishment. Today, Asian immigrants use corporal punishment and their kids vastly outperform the children of native born Americans. Maybe there is no correlation between those things, but that is much more concrete evidence than some papers in a psychology journal.
As my sibling commenter notes, we have a neat little case study here, too: we allow corporal punishment in public schools in a minority of states. Overlay outcomes by school district; how's it working out?
We don't
So in the absence of any evidence that corporal punishment works, the obvious answer should be to not do it.
That you seek to compare abuse with saving a child from being hit by a vehicle is a astonishing. We recognises the necessity of physical contact that would sometimes be unlawful when that contact is necessary all the time, irrespective of age.
This attempt at acting as if this has anything to do with children's age or development in order to allow it to be used to justify abuse of children that'd be a crime when carried out against adults fails in that basis: we know how to recognise the difference.
Yet somehow we are told to accept violence against children we're not ourselves willing to be subjected to.
I don't know what "healthy attitude to violence" is when there's a disagreement by what "violence" means. So I'll have to await some clarification, other than simply sharing your unspecified views. Police carry weapons in modern societies across the globe. Claiming violence does not produce lasting compliance is an interesting belief that is not shared by the majority of the world, so I find this claim uncompelling. There are exceptions ofc, like Japan, where a large part of the peacekeeping force patrols without weapons. While it is effective at times, the lack of efficacy can also be seen on Youtube.
> That you seek to compare abuse with saving a child from being hit by a vehicle is a astonishing
I did not compare them directly. I illustrated the use of the term "violence" is overly broad, as unconsented forceful action is not unwarranted. The question is degree, intent, and efficacy, as stated. Please don't misrepresent my statements. You are imagining I meant "abuse", which is another broad term that is dishonestly equated to "corporal punishment" or "violence". I have trouble teasing out what you specifically trying to communicate, other than a strong disdain for corporal punishment without qualification.
It's a belief that is backed by the total absence of evidence of a lasting effect on compliance from the use of violence. That societies continue to condone the use of violence despite the total lack of anything to suggest it works speaks to the pathology of the political process, not to the efficacy of violence.
There are situations where violence becomes necessary, such as self-defence or a defensive war, as a means to achieve short term compliance absent other alternatives, but anyone who believes in a beneficial long term effect on compliance is a fool.
Fixed it for you.
Here's the basic problem:
- Most punishments for kids outside of mainstream cultural norms are harmful
- Most punishments in anger are harmful
Living within that context, I don't use corporal punishment, and I think it would be harmful to my child. However, I am not at all ready to generalize the results to outside of that context.
Another way I'd frame it: The research evidence is at the level where I'm glad to call it a best practice (which I follow), and encourage others to do so. It's not yet at the level where I'm ready to judge people -- especially in other cultures -- who don't.
I suspect a thorough investigation of the African Americans beaten in the streets by cops would find that being beaten by their parents as a child is not substantial protection against being beaten in the streets by cops.
Its a convenient rationalization, though.
We have an unfortunate history where investigations OF African Americans BY white Americans led to not only incorrect but also very unfortunate conclusions.