Ordinary physical punishment: Is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002).
Abstract
E. T. Gershoff (2002) reviewed processes that might mediate and contexts that might moderate the associations between corporal punishment (CP) and child behaviors and provided an account of the methodological weaknesses of the research reviewed in her meta-analyses. In this examination of Gershoff, the authors argue that the biases and confounds in the meta-analyses further limit any causal inferences that can be drawn concerning the detrimental "effects" of CP on associated child behaviors. The authors suggest that undesirable child outcomes are associated with CP because the construct marks inept harsh parenting and conclude that although the harmful effects of physical abuse and other extreme punishments are clear, a blanket injunction against spanking is not justified by the evidence presented by Gershoff.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Two main criticisms of past meta-analyses were that spanking had been confounded with potentially abusive parenting in some studies and that spanking had been linked to detrimental outcomes only in methodologically weak studies.
“Two primary concerns that have been raised about past meta-analyses are that spanking has been confounded with potentially abusive parenting behaviors in some studies and that spanking has only been linked with detrimental outcomes in methodologically weak studies (Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002; Ferguson, 2013; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005).”
From Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. (2016) · cites this paper as Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002
Baumrind, Larzelere, and Cowan's (2002) reanalysis found that the effect size for less severe physical punishment was significantly smaller than that for harsh physical punishment (d = .30 vs. d = .46).
“They reported that the effect size for the studies using less severe physical punishment was significantly smaller than the effect size for harsh physical punishment (dless severe = .30 vs. dmore severe = .46, χ2[1, n = 12,244] = 74.50, p < .001).”
From Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. (2016) · cites this paper as Baumrind, Larzelere, & Cowan, 2002
The main criticism of Gershoff's (2002) meta-analysis was that its definition of physical punishment included harsh and potentially injurious behaviors such as hitting children with objects.
“The main criticism of the Gershoff (2002) meta-analysis has been that it included harsh and potentially injurious behaviors, such as hitting children with objects, in its definition of physical punishment (Baumrind et al., 2002; Benjet & Kazdin, 2003; although note that this criticism applies to the Paolucci & Violato, 2004 meta-analysis as well).”
From Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. (2016) · cites this paper as Baumrind et al., 2002
A major concern is that reliance on cross-sectional designs may mask child-elicitation effects, where difficult children elicit more spanking rather than spanking causing problematic behavior.
“A major concern raised about the spanking literature in general and previous meta-analyses in particular is that their reliance on cross-sectional designs may mask what are truly child-elicitation effects (Baumrind et al., 2002; Ferguson, 2013; Larzelere et al., 2004). In other words, associations between spanking and problematic behavior may reflect the fact that difficult children elicit more sp”
From Spanking and child outcomes: Old controversies and new meta-analyses. (2016) · cites this paper as Baumrind et al., 2002
No citation lists for this paper
No citation lists for this paper yet — checked again daily.
References 109 · Cited by 264
- Authors
- Baumrind, D., Larzelere, R. E., & Cowan, P. A.
- Affiliations
- University of California, Berkeley (US)
- Nebraska Medical Center (US)
- Venue
- Psychological Bulletin
- Published
- 2002
- Volume
- 128
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 580-589
- ISSN
- 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
- 1939-1455
- OpenAlex
- W2109312445
- Cited by
- 264
- References
- 109
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 9 · 2019: 7 · 2018: 14 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 9 · 2015: 14 · 2014: 23 · 2013: 17 · 2012: 17
- FWCI
- 12.58
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
- Social Sciences › Education › Education Discipline and Inequality
- Keywords
- corporal punishment, spanking, child behavior, harsh parenting, physical abuse, causal inference, child outcomes, parenting
- MeSH terms
- Adolescent, Child, Child Abuse, Child Behavior, Child, Preschool, Humans, Infant, Parent-Child Relations, Personality Development, Punishment, Socialization, Meta-Analysis as Topic
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
