ReviewThe American psychologist
The strength of the causal evidence against physical punishment of children and its implications for parents, psychologists, and policymakers.
Review in The American psychologist. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 25 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
25 citing papers in PubMed.
- Exploring Factors Associated With Self-Reported Parental Spanking and Hitting Out of Anger: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses Using National Panel Data.Family process · 2026Article
- Caught in the web of polyvictimization: Network analysis of theoretical clusters versus data-driven groupings of potentially traumatic events among adolescents.Child abuse & neglect · 2026Article
- More Arguments for the Weakness of the Empirical Evidence Used to Support Spanking Bans: Rejoinder to AfifiJournal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent · 2025Article
- Article
- Spanking and Children's Approaches to Learning: Estimates from a Longitudinal Matched-Sample Design.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Article
- An update on the scientific evidenceJournal of the Canadian Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry = Journal de l'Academie canadienne de psychiatrie de l'enfant et de l'adolescent · 2025Article
- The Time Has Come to Repeal Section 43 of the Criminal Code.Canadian journal of psychiatry. Revue canadienne de psychiatrie · 2024Article
- Corporal Punishment and Child Development in Low- and- Middle-Income Countries: Progress, Challenges, and Directions.Child psychiatry and human development · 2023Review
- Effects of a preventive parenting intervention for bereaved families on the intergenerational transmission of parenting attitudes: Mediating processes.Development and psychopathology · 2023Article
- Different Instruments, Same Content? A Systematic Comparison of Child Maltreatment and Harsh Parenting Instruments.Trauma, violence & abuse · 2023Review
- Revisiting the debate on effects of parental power-assertive control in two longitudinal studies: early attachment security as a moderator.Attachment & human development · 2023Article
- Physical discipline as a normative childhood experience in Singapore.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Article
- Spare the rod, spoil the child: measurement and learning from an intervention to shift corporal punishment attitudes and behaviors in Grenada, West Indies.Frontiers in public health · 2023Article
- Physical punishment and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2022Article
- Factors Associated with Unwanted Sexual Attention in Australian Nightlife Districts: An Exploratory Study of Nightlife Attendees.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- A Mixed-Method Investigation of Parent Perspectives on Early Childhood Behavioral Services in Primary Care.The journal of behavioral health services & research · 2022Article
- Physical punishment and child outcomes: a narrative review of prospective studies.Lancet (London, England) · 2021Review
- Identifying knowledge, self-efficacy and response efficacy of alternative discipline strategies among low-income Black, Latino and White parents.Health education research · 2021Article
- Physical punishment as a predictor of early cognitive development: Evidence from econometric approaches.Developmental psychology · 2020Article
- Child Abuse, Spanking and Adult Dating Violence: A Replication Study of Temple et al., 2018.The Psychiatric quarterly · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The question of whether physical punishment is helpful or harmful to the development of children has been subject to hundreds of research studies over the past several decades. Yet whether causal conclusions can be drawn from this largely nonexperimental research and whether the conclusions generalize across contexts are issues that remain unresolved. In this article, the authors summarize the extent to which the empirical research on physical punishment meets accepted criteria for causal inference. They then review research demonstrating that physical punishment is linked with the same harms to children as is physical abuse and summarize the extant research that finds links between physical punishment and detrimental outcomes for children are consistent across cultural, family, and neighborhood contexts. The strength and consistency of the links between physical punishment and detrimental child outcomes lead the authors to recommend that parents should avoid physical punishment, psychologists should advise and advocate against it, and policymakers should develop means of educating the public about the harms of and alternatives to physical punishment. (PsycINFO Database Record
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.