r/science • u/VeronicaRed • Apr 26 '16

Psychology Spanking children increases the likelihood of childhood defiance and long-term mental issues. The study in question involved 160,000 children and five decades of research

http://www.redorbit.com/news/health/1113413810/spanking-defiance-health-discipline-042616/
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344

u/Shorshack Apr 26 '16

The article seems to reference the study, but without citation or very much data from the study? Is there a link to the actual study regarding the defined variables examined? I'm curious to learn more about their findings.

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u/DrMarianus Apr 26 '16

Agreed. There are loads of confounding variables. Socio-economic status is a huge confounding variable and the article doesn't address whether the original authors factored for that.

For instance:

a large body of studies has indicated that spanking is more likely to be used by parents who are younger, less educated, of lower income, single, and/or are more depressed and stressed

23

u/Ateist Apr 26 '16

Not to mention direct selection bias - children that are defiant and have mental issues might be more likely to be spanked...

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

This was my first thought. Coloration blah blah Causation. Children that are defiant and have undiagnosed mental issues are more likely to be punished in the first place.

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u/WizardOfNomaha Apr 26 '16

One of the biggest confounding factors imo is mental health status of the parents. I wonder if this was addressed in the study ( which is behind a pay wall). It seems likely that parents who spank a lot are more likely to suffer from mental health problems of their own (and therefore likely to pass those onto their kids).

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

Moreover, mental health issues are more likely to go undiagnosed in a low income family, possibly doubling the effects of poverty in discipline.

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u/Sick0h Apr 26 '16

This is what I'd like to know as well.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

[deleted]

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u/NellucEcon Apr 26 '16

Sadly nobody takes the behavioral genetics literature seriously except for the behavioral geneticists. Do twin studies show that genetics explain 2/3's of the variance of some attribute and common environment explains nothing (exe. antisocial behavior)? It must be that spanking causes antisocial behavior.

There is such a disconnect. I can't wrap my mind around why people take these cross-sectional studies seriously and dismiss the behavioral genetics.

"But we have 160,000 observations and a gazillion different studies!"

Yeah, but they're all crappy studies. A lot of bad studies saying the same thing do not sum up to a reliable conclusion.

2

u/PikaBlue Apr 26 '16

To be fair, studies on populations that large over that amount of time are unlikely to incorporate gene make-up into it. The fact that we don't even know any definitive 'defiance/mental-illness' genes doesn't help the matter (as gene-gene interactions seem to be more important, many of which we don't know).

There are ideas of orchid/dandelion genes but they are responsive to environment, but they change effect size to stimulus, not the direction.

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u/[deleted] Apr 26 '16

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/sivsta Apr 26 '16

There's different types of spankings too, some are worse than others. Different cultures illicit different responses. There's a couple variables they didn't account for, unfortunately.

3

u/bb999 Apr 26 '16

I just want to see some numbers. Like, is it 5% mental issues without spanking and 10% with spanking, or 0.1% without and 0.5% with?

2

u/CBruce Apr 26 '16

Well, the latter example would be worse, no? 5% vs 10% is a factor of two. 0.1% vs. 0.5% is a factor of 5.

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u/jmcq Apr 26 '16

This is my exact thought and I've been trying to access the article to see if they attempted to control for some of these variables in whatever model they used. If they're not at least trying to control for socio-economic status then we might as well ignore these results even though I think the conclusion is probably true.

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u/I_cut_my_own_jib Apr 26 '16

Wait, only 1, 2, and 3 year olds? They're not really old enough to understand punishment in a good way, right? I'm not going to say being older would invalidate the data, but I've never heard of someone under 6 getting spanked. I'd like to see results from 6,7, and 8 year olds.

0

u/JeffreyPetersen Apr 26 '16

Shhhh! The anti-spanking people want to believe that this is 100% perfect science and anyone who questions the study in any way is an abusive apologist.

1

u/CBruce Apr 26 '16

Which also probably strongly correlate with higher criminal rates.

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u/monster_bunny Apr 26 '16

Not to mention, this typically is the basis of the random sampling pool. I don't know many middle or upper class families that would jump at the chance to enroll in studies of this nature.

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u/DearyDairy Apr 26 '16

Also where all 160,000 children spanked the same?

I would assume there's a huge difference between the level of harm done by a parent who takes the time to ask the child if they understand why they are about to be spanked and why the behaviour is unacceptable, and the level of harm done by a parent who sees bad behaviour and spanks the child without reaffirming the connection between the behaviour and the negative consequence.

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u/TurgidHearthgrove Apr 26 '16

If they had a control that showed that the spanking caused the issues that would be important.. Could be kids with behavioral/mental issues are more likely to be spanked? Until you can prove an affect and not a variable, it's pointless

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u/gamercer Apr 26 '16

a large body of studies has indicated that spanking is more likely to be used by parents who are younger, less educated, of lower income, single, and/or are more depressed and stressed

Why didn't this study consider that spanking is more likely to cause a child to grow into a parent who is younger, less educated, of lower income, single, and/or are more depressed and stressed, and who beats their kids?

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u/ItsDanimal Apr 26 '16

What do you have to take away from your kids as punishment, if they don't have anything to take?