The Corporal Punishment Research Page

Research articles discussed on this page:

• Davis, P.W. (1999). Corporal punishment cessation: Social Contexts and parents' experiences. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 14(5), 492-510.
• Larzelere, R.E.,and Johnson, B. (1999). Evaluations of the effects of Sweden's spanking ban on physical child abuse rates: A literature review. Psychological Reports, 85(2), 381-392.
• Larzelere, R.E., Schneider, W.N., Laron, D.B., and Pike, P.L. (1996). The effects of discipline responses in delaying toddler misbehavior recurrences. Child and Family Behavior Therapy, 18(3), 35-55.
• Straus, M.A., and Mouradian, V.E. (1998). Impulsive corporal punishment by mothers and anitsocial behavior and impusiveness of children. Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 16(3), 353-374.
• Wissow, L.S. (2001). Ethnicity, income, and parenting contexts of physical punishment in a national sample of families with young children. Child Maltreatment, 6(2), 118-129.

Wissow (2001)

1.) According to a Gallup Organization Poll in 1995, physical punishment along the lines of shaking, slapping, or spanking with a hand transpires in about 60 percent of American households with children. 2.) Straus and Donnelly (1993), and Wanchope and Straus (1990) poited 90 percent of parents have used corporal punishment at one time. 3.) Wissow found that there is a strong relationship between parental frustration and spanking.

Davis (1999)

1.) Analyzed behavior patterns of parents who practiced corporal punishment and then attmepted to stop. 2.) Subjects described spanking cessation as a complicated process rather than a simple abrupt termination of spanking. 3.) Davis defined five distinct corporal punishment cessation contexts that occur when parents attmept to stop spanking: Experiential, Ideological, Regulatory, Relational, and Biographical.

Larzelere, Schneider, Larson, and Pike (1996)

1.) Posited that a mild punishment - reasoning combination was very effective in curbing toddler misbehavior. 2.) Larzelere et al. found that corporal punishment in combination with reasoning was slightly less effective than non-corporal punishment in combination with reasoning. 3.) "The longest mean delay of both disobedience and fighting recurrences occurred after combinations of reasoning, corporal, and non-corporal punishment, although this three-component response was used infrequently."

Straus and Mouradian (1998)

1.) Theorized that impulsive corporal punishment might be a risk factor for both impulsiveness and behavior problems in children, as well as the theory that an interactive effect may be present between corporal punishment and impulsiveness. 2.) Posited that when more corporal punishment is used in a fmaily and the more impulsive it is, more impulsive and anitsocial behavior is exhibited in children. 3.) Corporal punishment tends to be related to higher levels of anitsocial behavior in children regardless of the age of the child and the level of maternal nurturance in the family.

Larzelere and Johnson (1999)

1.) Conducted a literature review on physical child abuse rates following a spaning ban in Sweden. 2.) Gelles and Edfeldt (1986) concluded that although there was less reported corporal punishment in Sweden than in the U.S., no significant differences in child abuse rates were determined. 3.) Child abuse fatalities remained low after enactment of the ban.

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