Hostname: page-component-6bb9c88b65-vmslq Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2025-07-23T13:50:02.486Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Spanking in the home and children's subsequent aggression toward kindergarten peers

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  31 October 2008

Zvi Strassberg ,
Kenneth A. Dodge ,
Gregory S. Pettit  and
John E. Bates
Zvi Strassberg*
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
Kenneth A. Dodge
Affiliation:
Vanderbilt University
Gregory S. Pettit
Affiliation:
Auburn University
John E. Bates
Affiliation:
Indiana University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Zvi Strassberg, Department of Psychology and Human Development, Box 512 GPC, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Although spanking of children is almost universal in U.S. society, its effects are not well understood. We examined the longitudinal relation between parental spanking and other physical punishment of preschool children and children's aggressive behavior toward peers later in kindergarten. A total of 273 boys and girls from diverse backgrounds served as subjects. The findings were consistent with a socialization model in which higher levels of severity in parental punishment practices are associated with higher levels of children's subsequent aggression toward peers. Findings indicated that children who had been spanked evidenced levels of aggression that were higher than those who had not been spanked, and children who had been the objects of violent discipline became the most aggressive of all groups. Patterns were qualified by the sexes of the parent and child and subtypes of child aggression (reactive, bullying, and instrumental). The findings suggest that in spite of parents' goals, spanking fails to promote prosocial development and, instead, is associated with higher rates of aggression toward peers.

Information

Type
Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 6 , Issue 3 , Summer 1994 , pp. 445 - 461
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1994

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Achenbach, T. M., McConaughy, S. H., & Howell, C. T. (1987). Child/adolescent behavior and emotional problems: Implications of cross-informant correlations for situational specificity. Psychological Bulletin. 101, 213–232.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Bandura, A. (1973). Aggression: A social learning analysis. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1977). Social learning theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bandura, A. (1986). Social foundations of thought and action: A social cognitive theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.Google Scholar
Bryan, J. W., & Freed, F. W. (1982). Corporal punishment: Normative data and sociological and psychological correlates in a community college population. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 11(2), 77–87.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Burgess, R. L. (1979). Child abuse: A social interactional analysis. In Lahey, B. B. & Kazdin, A. E. (Eds.), Advances in Child Clinical Psychology (Vol. 2, pp. 141–172). New York: Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chess, S., & Thomas, A. (1984). Origins and evolution of behavior disorders. New York: Brunner/Mazel.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., Lynch, M., Shonk, S., & Manly, J. (1992). An organizational perspective on peer relations in maltreated children. In Parke, R. D. & Ladd, G. W. (Eds.). Family-peer relationships: Modes of linkage (pp. 345–384). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Toth, S. L. (1993). Child maltreatment research and social policy: The neglected nexus. In Cicchetti, D. & Toth, S. L. (Eds.), Child abuse, child development, and social policy (pp. 1–6). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Coie, J. D., & Kiperschmidt, J. (1983). A behavioral analysis of emerging social status in boy's groups. Child Development, 54, 1400–1416.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A. (1983). Behavioral antecedents of peer social status. Child Development, 54, 1386–1399.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A. (1991). The structure and function of reactive and proactive aggression. In Peplar, D. J. & Rubin, K. H. (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 201–218). Hills-dale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., & Coie, J. D. (1987). Social information processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children's peer groups. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 53(6), 1146–1158.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Forehand, R., & McMahon, R. J. (1981). Helping the noncompliant child: A clinician's guide to parent training. New York: Guilford Press.Google Scholar
Garbarino, J., & Gilliam, G. (1983). Understanding abusive families. Lexington, MA: Lexington Books.Google Scholar
George, C., & Main, M. (1979). Social interactions of young abused children: Approach, avoidance, and aggression. Child Development, 50, 306–318.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Gil, D. G. (1970). Violence against children: Physical child abuse in the United States. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Holden, G. W. (1989, 04). Parental selection of responses to misbehavior: The case of physical punishment. In Dix, T. (Chair), Beyond belief: Information processing approaches to parenting. Symposium conducted at the biennial meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Kansas City, MO.Google Scholar
Holden, G. W., & Zambarano, R. J. (1992). The origins of parenting: Transmission of beliefs about physical punishment. In Sigel, I. E., McGillicuddy, A. V., & Goodnow, J. J. (Eds.), Parent belief systems: The psychological consequences for children (2nd ed., pp. 143–174). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Hollingshead, A. B. (1975). Four-factor index of social position. Unpublished manuscript, Yale University, New Haven, CT.Google Scholar
Hotaling, G. T., Straus, M. A., & Lincoln, A. J. (1988). Violence in the family and crime outside the family. In Tonry, M. & Ohlin, L. (Eds.), Crime and Justice: An annual review of research. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Hughes, H. (1988). Psychological and behavioral correlates of family violence in child witnesses and victims. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 58, 77–90.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Jaffe, P., Wolfe, D., Wilson, S., & Zak, L. (1986). Similarities in behavioral and social maladjustment among child victims and witnesses to family violence. American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 56, 142–146.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaufman, J., & Cicchetti, D. (1989). Effects of maltreatment on school-age children's sociocmotional development: Assessments in a day-camp setting. Developmental Psychology, 25, 516–524.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Larzelere, R. E. (1986). Moderate spanking: Model or deterrent of children's aggression in the family? Journal of Family Violence. 1, 27–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lefkowitz, M. M., Eron, L. D., Walder, L. O., & Huesmann, L. R. (1977). Growing up lobe violent. New York: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Lobitz, G. K., & Johnson, S. M. (1975). Normal versus deviant children: A multimethod comparison. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 3, 353–374.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maccoby, E. E. (1992). The role of parents in the socialization of children: An historical overview. Developmental Psychology, 28, 1006–1017.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maccoby, E. E., & Martin, J. (1983). Socialization in the context of the family: Parent-child interaction. In Mussen, P. H. (Ed.). Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 1–101). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
MacDonald, K. (1987). Parent-child physical play with rejected, neglected, and popular boys. Developmental Psychology, 23, 705–711.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Parke, R. D. (1981). Fathers. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Parke, R. D. (1988). Families in life-span perspective: A multi-level developmental approach. In Hetherington, E. M., Lerner, R. M., & Perlmutter, M. (Eds.), Child development in lifespan perspective (pp. 159–190). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Parke, R. D., & Slaby, R. (1983). The development of aggression. In Mussen, P. H. (Ed.), Handbook of child psychology (Vol. 4, pp. 547–641). New York: John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
Parker, J. G., & Asher, S. R. (1987). Peer relations and later personal adjustment: Are lower-accepted children “at risk”? Psychological Bulletin, 102, 357–389.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patterson, G. R. (1982). Coercive family process. Eugene, OR: Castalia.Google Scholar
Patterson, G. R. (1986). Performance models for antisocial boys. American Psychologist, 41, 432–444.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Patterson, G. R., Littman, R. A., & Bricker, W. (1967). Assertive behavior in children: A step toward a theory of aggression. Monographs of the Society for Research in Child Development, 32(5), 1–43.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Patterson, G. R., Reid, J. R., & Dishion, T. J. (1989). Antisocial boys. Eugene, OR: Castalia.Google Scholar
Price, J. M., & Dodge, K. A. (1989). Reactive and proactive aggression in childhood: Relations to peer status and social context dimensions. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 17, 455–471.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Sameroff, A. J., & Chandler, M. J. (1975). Reproductive risk and the continuum of caretaking casuality. In Horowitz, F. D., Hetherington, M., Scarr-Salapatek, S., & Siegel, G. (Eds.), Review of child development research (Vol. 4, pp. 187–244). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Schwartz, D., Dodge, K. A., & Coie, J. D. (1994). The emergence of chronic peer victimization of boy's play groups. Child Development, 64, 1755–1772.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sears, R. R., Maccoby, E. E., & Levin, H. (1957). Patterns of child rearing. Evanston, IL: Row, Peterson.Google Scholar
Strassberg, Z. (1994). Social information processing in compliance situations by mothers of behavior-problem boys. Child Development, (in press).Google Scholar
Straus, M. A. (1979). Measuring intrafamily conflict and violence: The Conflict Tactics Scale. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 41, 75–88.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Straus, M. A. (1987). Measuring physical and emotional abuse of children with the Conflict Tactics Scale. Unpublished report. Family Violence Research Program of the Family Research Laboratory, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH.Google Scholar
Straus, M. A. (1990, 08). Discipline and deviance: Physical punishment of children and violence and other crime in adulthood. Presidential address, meeting of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, Washington, DC.Google Scholar
Straus, M. A., & Gelles, R. J. (1986). Societal change and change in family violence from 1975 to 1985 as revealed by two national surveys. Journal of Marriage and the Family, 48, 465–479.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tabachnik, B. G., & Fidell, L. S. (1989). Using multi-variate statistics. New York: Harper & Row.Google Scholar
Thompson, R. A. (1993). Development research and legal policy: Toward a two-way street. In Cic-chetti, D. & Toth, S. L. (Eds.), Child abuse, child development, and social policy (pp. 75–116). Norwood, NJ: Ablex.Google Scholar
Troy, M., & Sroufe, L. A. (1987). Victimization among preschoolers: Role of attachment relationship history. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 26, 166–172.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Wauchope, B. A., & Straus, M. A. (1989). Age, gender, and class differences in physical punishment and physical abuse of American children. In Straus, M. A. & Gelles, R. J. (Eds.), Physical violence in A merican families: Risk factors and adaptations to violence in 8, 145 families (pp. 1–15). New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction.Google Scholar
Werner, E. E., & Smith, R. S. (1982). Vulnerable but invincible: A longitudinal study of resilient children and youth. New York: McGraw-Hill.Google Scholar