The insufficiency of the evidence used to categorically oppose spanking and its implications for families and psychological science: Comment on Gershoff et al. (2018).

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

6 citing papers in PubMed.

1. Children's representations of parents account for multifinality in outcomes of parental control: Evidence from two studies.Development and psychopathology · 2025
   Article
2. 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 · 2025
   Article
3. Revisiting the debate on effects of parental power-assertive control in two longitudinal studies: early attachment security as a moderator.Attachment & human development · 2023
   Article
4. Physical punishment and child, adolescent, and adult outcomes in low- and middle-income countries: protocol for systematic review and meta-analysis.Systematic reviews · 2022
   Article
5. Harsh parenting and child conduct and emotional problems: parent- and child-effects in the 2004 Pelotas Birth Cohort.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2022
   Article
6. There is still no evidence that physical punishment is effective or beneficial: Reply to Larzelere, Gunnoe, Ferguson, and Roberts (2019) and Rohner and Melendez-Rhodes (2019).The American psychologist
   Article

Corrections and comments

• Commented on by
  There is still no evidence that physical punishment is effective or beneficial: Reply to Larzelere, Gunnoe, Ferguson, and Roberts (2019) and Rohner and Melendez-Rhodes (2019).
• Comment on
  The strength of the causal evidence against physical punishment of children and its implications for parents, psychologists, and policymakers.

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

Abstract

Indexed as