Chocolate for the Mind

Because the question of whether or not spanking should be allowed as a form of punishment is so controversial, there are many misconceptions relating to the effects of spanking on children. The media has publicised several studies that seem to indicate that spanking is a display of violent aggression that causes children to have social, mental, behavioral, and even sexual problems later in life. The claim that spanking causes children to become more aggressive, however, has little evidence to support it in most cases.

A study by Gunnoe and Mariner of the Department of Psychology at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan concluded that “claims that spanking teaches aggression seem unfounded” in most cases (Gunnoe). The only group studied in which the number of playground fights increased was “8- to 11-year-old white boys in single-mother families,” and the number of fights decreased for “children aged 4 to 7 years and for children who are black.” The results of this study seem to indicate that a combination of factors, not just spanking alone, causes an increase in aggressive behavior. Another study conducted by Robert E. Larzelere examined if reasoning with a child about why they received a spanking would prevent the child from becoming aggressive.  For preadolescents and adolescents, “spanking had a minimal effect on aggression for frequent reasoners” (Larzelere).  This study shows that as long as parents explain why they are administering the spanking, children will not learn aggressive behavior from spanking.

Children can become aggressive towards their parents and other students because of punishment they receive.  However, to say that spanking itself causes this aggression is unwarranted by experimental data.  Instead, a combination of factors, such as age, family situation, and communication between the parent and child determines whether each individual child will pick up aggressive behaviors.

This entry was posted on Monday, February 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 pm and is filed under AP Language Assignments. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.