1. Ordinary Physical Punishment: Is it harmful. Evren Etel & H
Ordinary Physical Punishment: Is it harmful? Evren Etel & H.Melis Yavuz

2. Introduction Is ordinary physical punishment harmful to the child?
Many studies:
Positive outcomes
Negative outcomes
Meta-analyses to draw a conclusion on this issue

3. Outline Gershoff (2002a); Criticisms to Gershoff;
Meta-analyses
Process- Context Model
Criticisms to Gershoff;
Baumrind et al. (2002)
Holden (2002)
Parke (2002)
Gershoff’s response(2002b) ;
Revised Process-Context Model
Concluding Comments

4. Gershoff (2002a): Meta-analyses
Corporal Punishment and Abuse:
Corporal Punishment: “is the use of physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience physical pain but not injury for the purposes of correction or control of the child’s behavior.”
Abuse: A potential outcome of CP. “Behaviors that risk physical injury” in child.

5. Gershoff (2002a): Meta-analyses
Child Behaviors and Experiences Associated with CP:
Immediate Compliance
Aggression (Attribution Theory and Modeling)
Moral Internalization (Attribution Theory)
Quality of Parent-Child Relationship
Delinquent, Criminal and Antisocial Behaviors (Social Control Theory)
Mental Health
Becoming a Victim of Physical Abuse
Adult Aggression
Adult Abuse of Own Child or Spouse
Adult Mental Health
Adult Criminal and Antisocial Behaviors

6. Attribution & Social Control Theories
Attribution Theory: power assertive methods– lead external attributions for behavior and minimize internal motivations.
! Associated with increased aggression and decreased moral internalization
Social Control Theory: parental CP erodes positive parent-child relationships— this decreases child’s motivation to internalize parents’ values and result in low self control.
! Associated with increased delinquent behaviors, and decreased internalization.

7. Gershoff (2002a): Meta-analyses
Discussion
Only one positive outcome (immediate compliance) and 10 undesirable outcomes.
No causation can be drawn from this meta- analyses.

8. Gershoff (2002a): Process-Context Model
90% of American parents spanked their child but most are not violent.
Not all children who had CP turn out to be deviant.
Process-Context model :
Explains how, why, and when parental CP affect which children
Child factors as mediators
Situational factors  as moderators of CP
Model shows which aspects of CP, child characteristics and context are related to outcomes in children.

9. Gershoff (2002a): Process-Context Model

10. Gershoff (2002a): Process-Context Model
Mediational Processes in Child
Emotional and Sensory Arousal
Hoffman (1983)  sufficient emotional arousal
Pain vs. Anger vs. Fear
Perception and Acceptance of Parents’ Disciplinary Message
Normativeness
Observational Learning
External vs. Internal Attributes
Social Control
Social Information Processing
Negative Reinforcement and Coercive Cycles

11. Gershoff (2002a): Process-Context Model

12. Gershoff (2002a): Process-Context Model
Stable Individual and Relational Context
Characteristics of the Child
Characteristics of the Family
Characteristics of the Parent
Age (younger than 4 or adolescence more (-) effects)
Family size (large familymore CP)
Age (young mothers more CP)
Gender (boys more CP)
Unhappy couples (CP)
Gender (mothers use more CP)
Temperament (fearfulness/ reactivity)
Single parent (CP)
Temperament (tendency towards aggression)
Psychological Functioning (depressionmore CP)
Parenting Style and Beliefs

13. Conference on Corporal Punishment (1996)
Debate is not on the severe forms of CP; it is on the parental spanking, which increase the effectiveness of other disciplinary tactics
Definition of spanking
a form of CP that is
“a) physically non-injurious,
b) intended to modify behavior, and
c) administered with an opened hand to the extremities or buttocks” (Friedman & Schonberg, 1996, p.853).

14. Larzelere (1996)
A review of the outcomes of parental use of non-abusive or customary physical punishment
If you exclude abuse from definition of physical punishment, you find more neutral or beneficial outcomes.
No sound scientific evidence to support anti-spanking bans. This lack of evidence is a crucial issue when expanding prohibited types of corporal punishment from physical abuse to even the mildest forms of spanking or slapping a preschooler's hand.
Physical punishment is either beneficial or neutral if used
less than weekly,
at nonabusive severity levels,
by parents who are not physically violent,
without a potentially damaging instrument,
between ages 2 to 6, used privately,
with REASONING,
as a BACK UP for aversive discipline responses.

15. Baumrind (1996)
The studies have not established that normative physical punishment is a causal risk factor for the detrimental child outcomes.
Thus, there is not enough scientific support for a blanket injunction against disciplinary spanking.
She proposed that
Physical punishment has a goal of gaining immediate compliance.
Use of reasoning with power assertive methods can encourage internalization.
Age is important.
Cultural context determines the meaning and consequence of physical discipline (normativeness).

16. Baumrind, Larzelere and Cowan (2002)
Gershoff’s analyses are not relevant to the current debate about normative spanking, since meta-analyses included many measures of extreme and excessive physical punishment.
They highlight two important issues that can be applied to a wide range of psychological research: 1) the limitations of correlational research in terms of making causal statements and 2) the importance of operational definitions.
Methodologically strong studies have not established that normative physical punishment is a causal risk factor for the detrimental child outcomes.
They conclude that the evidence presented in Gershoff’s meta- analyses does not justify a blanket injunction against mild to moderate disciplinary spanking

17. Criticism 1: Definition of CP
Gershoff (2002b)
Baumrind, Larzelere and Cowan (2002)
Three main distinctions;
“harsh and punitive but not legally designated abusive punishment” vs “the application of spanking in a supportive parent-child climate”.
“Physical punishment” vs “physical abuse”
Straus (1994)-index of abuse or severe violence on the conflicts tactics scale
Gershoff disagrees with Baumrind and says we cannot limit the study of CP to supportive parental contexts.
28% of parents use an object while spanking their children so “spanking with an object” was added to the definition of CP.
These are the studies using Conflict Tactics Scale (CTS)

18. Criticism 2: Directionality
Baumrind, Larzelere and Cowan (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
Gershoff assumes a direction from parent to child but children also affect and elicit parenting practices.
Parents could have used a wide range of practices but they choose to use CP. So the effects are from parent to child.
How did the child become “defiant” to begin with? It is likely that s/he had an ineffective parent.

19. Criticism 3: methodology
Baumrind, Larzelere and Cowan (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
the meta-analyses lack in causal implications. (how can it be concluded as blanket injunction without causal implications?)
combining studies with methodological problems
Because there is no experimental research (not possible to do random assignment).
There are high risks associated with CP use.
Unless studies repeatedly show the presence of positive effects, one cannot reccomend to use it.

20. Parke (2002) Historical phases of punishment research
descriptive phase
experimental phase
process phase
politicization of punishment phase
Normativeness of the punishment

21. Parke (2002)
Person-oriented approach with regard to emotional, cognitive and social processes
Transactional models with regard to the dynamic nature of the punishment influences
punishment, as a package variable,
a new frame involving other socialization practices from the point of both science and values in order to be clearly understood.

22. Criticism
Parke (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
Effects of CP cannot be presented in isolation; punishment is a package variable.
CP has already been studied within context.
For punishment to be studied as a package variable, researchers need to identify which discipline techniques covary with CP first and then reveal the differential effects of CP when combined with different techniques.

23. Holden (2002) Striking Results
1.Results of the meatanalysis is consistent.
2.There is lack of positive outcomes. According to Gershoff’s analysis, the one positive outcome was immediate compliance.
3.Uniformity of the negative outcomes was observed.
Although Gershoff’s review has documented negative associations with CP, no causal connections have been shown.

24. Holden (2002)
The meta analyses present the reflections of the parental use of customary CP excluded from severe forms of punishment because:
many studies in the meta-analyses did not examine the more serious forms of CP.
parents who engaged in more severe forms of physical punishment might not report it in their self reports.

25. Holden (2002) “some parents spank hard, others hardly spank”
Parental characteristics
Variations of behaviors which spanking co-occurs with

26. Holden (2002)
Theories
Learning theory
Socialization research
Perspective of children
Despite the need of improvement in the studies and explanation of the mediational processes, the available evidence and the theory weighted clearly on the negative effects of the customary CP.

27. Criticism 1: CP or abuse
Holden (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
Focus was on parental customary CP rather than overly harsh or abusive behavior.
Parents are afraid to tell about abuse (researchers have an ethical obligation to report abuse)
Socially desirable responses

28. Criticism 2: discipline or abuse
Holden (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
no distinguishment between discipline and punishment (?abuse?)
Punishment is a mean for discipline.
Punishment can be an effective discipline strategy if only it is used with reasoning.

29. Criticism 3: Process context model
Holden (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
If it is a process model, there should be interaction between variables, not only the list of the key variables as mediators and moderators.
Interaction effects can be understood after understanding current situation in research
Only few research investigated interaction effects, so not much research to do a meta- analyses.

30. Criticism 4: Process context model
Holden (2002)
Gershoff (2002b)
two-process model
a first immediate physiological and sensory reaction
a secondary cognitive appraisal
mediational processes
primary
secondary mediational processes
Accepts that there should be stages
Also adds a third stage
Long term Cognitive Processing of the child
Gershoff considered secondary processes as primary long term cognitive processes.
Gershoff revised her model.

31. Gershoff (2002b) Revised Process Context Model
The revised model emphasizes processes and contexts that occur immediately following CP.
In revised model
Mediation processes in the child were investigated and they were seperated into different steps in line with the criticisms of Holden
Interactional context and stable individual & relational context were shown to elicit CP
Abuse is not a direct outcome but it is moderated by state of the parent and & stable characteristics of the parent.

32. Revised Process- Context Model

33. Gershoff (2002b) There are high risks associated
CP can escalate into abuse
Current knowledge and research is not sufficient to recommend the use of CP

34. Conclusion From the studies these can be concluded that:
CP  not a recommended form of discipline;
harms > positive outcomes
CP  outcome + processes (interactions, moderators & mediators)
not enough empirical evidence supporting either blanket injunction or the use of CP
However;
Giving advice for not using physical punishment can only be effective:
when alternatives to punishment, such as time out, are also presented
when the costs and benefits of the strategies are clear
In conclusion:
Even though some researchers accept the use of CP, there are other alternative methods that work well without causing any injury to the child.
Since this issue is crucial for the development of children, any conclusion should be drawn with caution and further scientific evidence is required to favor the use or prohibition of CP.

35. Thank you for listening!