Study Links Spanking to Lower IQ
I thought this study was interesting, and the way the article reports the study is pretty fair:
Whether or not spanking equates with dumber kids is not known, and may never be known. That’s because the only way to truly show cause and effect would be to follow over time two groups of kids, one randomly assigned to get spanked and another who would not get spanked.
Obviously, that sort of study would not be palatable for anyone involved. So the author of this article did a good job of making it clear that correlation doesn’t necessarily equal causation. Way to be. That said, here’s what the study did find:
[Murray] Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation in Maryland studied nationally representative samples of two age groups: 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. The researchers tested the kids’ IQs initially and then four years later.
Both groups of kids got smarter after four years. But the 2- to 4-year-olds who were spanked scored 5 points lower on the IQ test than those not spanked. For children ages 5 to 9, the spanked ones scored on average 2.8 points lower than their unspanked counterparts.
The results, he said, were statistically significant. And they held even after accounting for parental education, income, cognitive stimulation by parents and other factors that could affect children’s mental abilities.
Having it made it clear that a causation can’t be proven, the article does go on to say, okay, well, let’s just suppose there is a cause and effect relationship going on here. How would that work exactly? First up is the idea that maybe spanking induces a trauma that affects cognitive skills. I always find that sort of thinking to be a bit hard to swallow. It seems to me that while out and out abuse might affect cognitive ability, a little swat here and there wouldn’t really make too much of a difference. But maybe that will turn out to be the case.
A more likely explanation to my mind, if there is indeed a causal link, might be this one:
By using hitting rather than words or other means of discipline, parents could be depriving kids of learning opportunities. “With spanking, a parent is delivering a punishment to get the child’s attention and to get them to behave in a certain way,” said Elizabeth Gershoff who studies childhood development at the University of Texas, Austin. “It’s not fostering children’s independent thinking.”
Of course, I only agree with this statement because it appeals to my own sense of what is right as a parent. I would never resort to hitting, but I will say, “Please don’t bite mommy,” about 70 times. And it actually finally started to work around try 67. Now we’re moving on to, “Please don’t bite your friends at daycare.”
The most likely explanation of all:
And then there are genes, as some kids are just born smarter than others.
This last was actually the first thing that popped into my mind. When I looked at studies about breast feeding, the claim that it could raise a child’s IQ by seven points (or that formula feeding lowers IQ by seven points–if you’d care to look at the situation that way) kept coming up. And of course, it’s a claim that just can’t be proven, because the biggest determiner of a child’s intelligence is the parents’ intelligence, and breast feeding as a behavior is impossible to separate from other confounding factors like class, socio-economic status, etc.
This spanking study claims to have isolated just the behavior, but since that is extremely difficult to do, I am somewhat skeptical. Still, it’s enjoyable to read an article that didn’t exaggerate the claims of the study. I anticipate that this same study will be quoted often in more simplistic terms all over the media.
perceval Said,
September 26, 2009 @ 4:53 pm
There’s also something else – overall parenting style. There’s substantial evidence that authoritative parents, who impose flexible discipline within reasonable limits, get better results than authoritarian parents, who expect kids to do what they are told because “the parents say so”. The authoritarian mindset discourages or even penalises independence and exploration, because these are both messy and may lead children to challenge authority. Authoritative parents may spank, too, but are overall more likely to use reasoning and respect the child’s own reasoning processes.
in other words, parents who spank are *more likely* to be authoritarian and so more likely to deprive kids of opportunities to think independently. They are less likely to explore the reasons for choices and decisions with kids.
This actually fits well with the “pro-spanking” research that was cited recently on this blog. Larzelere’s publishing history is replete with evidence that firm reasoning works best, with spanking only to be used as a back-up of last resort. I bet that the parents whose kids didn’t progress as much spanked first.
Jodi Said,
September 26, 2009 @ 5:52 pm
This was an interesting study, and one I’m curious about. A web site I follow looks at all these big European studies and breaks down the scientific jargon in layman’s terms. Sometimes they find that the media has totally misinterpreted the data (surprise).
NHS looked at this study, and here’s a link to their write up.
http://www.nhs.uk/news/2009/09September/Pages/Does-smacking-make-children-stupid.aspx
Two interesting points were that the data was collected over 20 years ago and only from the mother’s perspective. Parenting styles may have changed since then, and who knows what kind of paternal influence was going on outside the time period observed.
Hopefully the results will prompt more research on this.
Julie Said,
September 26, 2009 @ 6:29 pm
Yes, although the article I read seemed pretty decent, it did not point out the many flaws of this study. Old data, and the kids were only observed for a total of two weeks! And the reporting was all from the moms. It doesn’t seem like a very good sample of data, really.
How to discipline is really an interesting issue and I wonder how much of it is mere personal choice or effectiveness with regard to specific kids. If there is a “right” way, I’m definitely interested in knowing what it is. But I was skeptical of this spanking study from the git go, and I’m moreso now.
teacherninja Said,
September 27, 2009 @ 1:08 am
I also wonder about socio-economic status. IQ and school achievement seem to be most impacted by poverty and it is traditionally lower SES parents–in my experience–that consider hitting an appropriate disciplinary method.
Timothy Mills Said,
September 27, 2009 @ 8:12 am
“and breast feeding as a behavior is impossible to separate from other confounding factors like class, socio-economic status, etc.”
I disagree. As long as you can measure all of the factors you think are relevant, such as class, economic and social factors, etc, and you have a large enough sample, there are statistical techniques that can factor them out from any apparent effect of breastfeeding (or spanking).
Of course, that still leaves the question of causality open.
Emilia Said,
October 3, 2009 @ 3:00 pm
I think the elusive question is: will children be less intelligent if they’re spanked, or are less intelligent kids more likely to elicit spankings? It’s hard to tease cause and effect apart here.
Also, I noted that at least in the case of toddlers, children were classified as being spanked if they were spanked once or more a week. What about parents who spank, say, once a month or once a year? Somehow spanking a child once or more a week, especially past preschool age, seems a little excessive. I tend to agree more with psychologist John Rosemond’s statement that spankings should occur “out of the blue, once in a blue moon” rather than a regular disciplinary strategy. So maybe parents who spank their children once a week or more have larger issues that are affecting their children’s development.
Regarding breastfeeding, I think there’s convincing evidence that it does have some effect on children’s intelligence even when factors like maternal socioeconomic status, etcetera, are taken in account. But it seems that that effect is probably relatively minor, and I don’t really see who benefits by morally forcing a woman who truly does not want to breastfeed to do so.