Children Who Are Spanked Have Lower IQs, New Research Finds

[steven johnson]

Spanking by parents has been shown to cause increased aggression and anxiety in children. Now there is apparently also a detrimental effect on intellectual development.

Spanking Leads To Child Aggression And Anxiety, Regardless Of Cultural Norm

ScienceDaily (Sep. 25, 2009) — Children who are spanked have lower IQs worldwide, including in the United States, according to new groundbreaking research by University of New Hampshire professor Murray Straus. The research results will be presented Friday, Sept. 25, 2009, at the 14th International Conference on Violence, Abuse and Trauma, in San Diego, Calif.

"All parents want smart children. This research shows that avoiding spanking and correcting misbehavior in other ways can help that happen," Straus says. "The results of this research have major implications for the well being of children across the globe."

IQs of children ages 2 to 4 who were not spanked were 5 points higher four years later than the IQs of those who were spanked. The IQs of children ages 5 to 9 years old who were not spanked were 2.8 points higher four years later than the IQs of children the same age who were spanked.

...corporal punishment is extremely stressful and can become a chronic stressor for young children, who typically experience corporal punishment three or more times a week. For many it continues for years. The research found that the stress of corporal punishment shows up as an increase in post-traumatic stress symptoms such as being fearful that terrible things are about to happen and being easily startled. These symptoms are associated with lower IQ.


Children Who Are Spanked Have Lower IQs, New Research Finds

[Teaser]

1. stupid study

seriously, the confound here is clear for anybody to see. you don't have to be a scientist:

Are households that spank more or less likely to be intellectually enriching?

[Truth2Tell]

16. Yep, the most common logical fallacy

in the so-called "social sciences" is that correlation equals causation. This same insidious fallacy is responsible for bringing us the news that porn causes rape, that pot is a gateway drug, and endless other similar stupidities.

[crim son]

2. I was spanked growing up: I knew very few kids who weren't,

but it wasn't two or three times a week! I'm wondering what this study is actually measuring: poverty, ignorance, crappy parenting?

[jwirr]

3. I am going to play devil's advocate on this one. Could it be that parents

who spank their children have lower IQs and so their children inherit lower IQs?

[Teaser]

11. that's not devil's advocate

it's an important consideration.

[Johonny]

19. You might want to read Mismeasurement of Man

by Stephen J Gould. Is intelligence as "measured" from IQ tests, depictable as a single number, capable of ranking people in a linear order, genetically based, effectively immutable? No. So it's unlikely just genetics at work here.

It's really hard to know what to make of the study. What are the error bars associated with their graph? Whats the R^2? Is the variance they observe statistically significant (only 3 points in the older age group)? How much of the variance they observe is due to spanking? Without digging through the raw data I can't tell you myself. If you want to play devil's advocate, I'd go in that direction. There's a link on the site if you wish to look at more of the data and try to answer those questions.

The good news is scores on IQ tests are not immutable. These kids are not without hope.

[AngryAmish]

36. Do you know that a lot of that book has been debunked?

There ia a lot of very good science that says that iq exists and it is pretty heritable.

I agree with you that IQ is mutable but what your IQ is does depend a lot on the IQ of your parents. Not exclusively (of course).

[Hannah Bell]

37. "heritable": height is 80% heritable. but its expression varies significantly (like 4-6 inches)

depending on nutrition, disease, & other environmental factors.

and no, "a lot" hasn't been "debunked".

[Withywindle]

34. That was my first thought!

Seems obvious to me that parents who spank their children often and use that as the primary form of discipline probably aren't of the highest echelon of intellect to begin with. Therefore not only do they pass those genes down, they probably also don't have much in the way of intellectual stimulation in the household. Those two factors obviously are going to have a greater impact on a child's IQ than a few smacks on the butt from an otherwise challenging and enriching family.

[Anakin Skywalker]

44. *self-deleted*

[JerseygirlCT]

48. That's what I was thinking

from the snip, anyway, it appears they're taking a correlation of not spanking and greater intelligence, and reading into it a causation, when maybe it's more about the intelligence of the spanking vs. non-spanking parents...

[LeftyMom]

4. Of course. Smart people learn better ways to discipline. Smarter people have smarter kids.

Dumb people solve problems by hitting, and also make more dumb people.

Yay.

[KittyWampus]

14. Well then, we also have to take into consideration those people who don't know ANY way to discipline

In the past, corporal punishment was over-used. It should be a rare instance if at all.

Now, I see kids with parents every day who have not been taught any discipline or very little.

[Hannah Bell]

39. & that's why those people were all so stupid, of course.

yes, elite english upper-class boarding schools turned out morons.

[Hannah Bell]

40. britain's upper-crust sent their kids to boarding schools where severe corporal

punishment was standard. these wealthy folk *invented* iq testing. i guess they were stupid & had stupid kids.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francis_Galton

[LeftyMom]

41. Presumably they were beaten for failing to capitalize the beginnings of sentances.

Perhaps the idea has some merit after all.

[Hannah Bell]

62. gratuitous linguistic scoldings from the person who thinks strings of words = "sentances".

[Hannah Bell]

63. "smarter" people *don't* have "smarter" kids, actually. there's this little thing called

"reversion to the mean".

"In the law , experiments carried on extensively have given us scientific proof of what we already guessed by observation: namely, that plants and animals all tend to revert, in successive generations, toward a given mean, or average . . In short, there is undoubtedly a pull toward the mean which keeps all living things within more or less fixed limitations."—*Luther Burbank, Partner of Nature (1939), pp. 89-99.



However, richer kids do better on IQ tests, spanked or unspanked. And money doesn't tend to revert to the mean.

[gopiscrap]

5. I was spanked all the time growing up

I deserved each one..I was a wild and hyper child always getting myself or others into trouble...and I have 130 IQ ran for US Congress and have a great job, good kids (who are some times spanked) good marriage!!!

[frylock]

7. yeah well if you hadn't been spanked as a child you'd have an iq of 132.8

[gopiscrap]

25. Very funny....you made me laugh before 9AM

If I hadn't been spanked as a child, I'd probably not got my work done

[DJ13]

6. Which end were the stupid parents spanking?

To be honest, a lack of spanking today seems associated with a lack of respect for authority by too many young people, but they wont study that, will they?

[northernlights]

8. I was spanked growing up

as well as other physical abuse, neglect, mental abuse, etc. I have the stress, anxiety, ptsd, fear of people, etc. But my iq tests anywhere from 135-155 depending on how I'm feeling when I'm tested. But yeah, my primery abuser was kind of stoopid. So was her enabler and sperm donor. :shrug:

[Control-Z]

45. Ditto - your entire post

except my abuser was highly intelligent. He was an angry, hateful racist who had been abused himself as a child. Mom was smart, loving, and gentle (but died when I was young).

I know I would have been an entirely different person if I'd had the proper nurturing as a child.

[Ian David]

9. Maybe only the stupid kids need to be spanked?

Okay, probably not.

But it IS possible the causation is reversed.

[Ian David]

10. This study is useless without data on adults who LIKE to be spanked. n/t

[tularetom]

12. Which is the cause and which is the effect?

Maybe the kids were spanked because they had a lower IQ to begin with.

Or maybe the spanking led to their having a lower IQ.

Or maybe the parents who rely on spanking as a disciplinary tool have lower IQ's themselves and therefore spawn children who also have low IQ's.

Personally I wasn't spanked a whole lot as a kid because I became very adept at making myself scarce when I knew I had fucked up. By the time I reappeared my mom and dad usually forgot what it was they were pissed at me about.

[progressivebydesign]

13. Damn! You mean my 150 IQ could have been higher had I not been beaten as a c hild?

I could have been a fucking Einstein! I mean this literally, I have an IQ of 149.

I think the bigger point is that people with less intelligence and education spank their children...

[LisaL]

15. As far as I can tell, there might not be a cause and effect there.

There might be differences between people who spank their children and the ones who don't. Like economic and educational differences, etc. The children's IQ might therefore have nothing to do with them being spanked.

[Arkana]

17. My mother drank a gallon of wine while she was pregnant with me.

When my parents brought me home, my father accidentally whacked my head on the chandelier in the living room.

A few months later, I fell off the washing machine while being changed.

My father spanked me--sparingly. His father used to beat the hell out of him as a kid and he wouldn't raise a hand to me unless I was being an absolutely colossal little asshole. To this date, I can only remember maybe 5 separate occasions in my 24 years when my father or mother whacked me.

I have an IQ of about 135.




















I've also killed three people with a cappuccino machine.

[mzteris]

18. just think

what it might have been. . .

[Dreamer Tatum]

20. This not causality in any sense

Google "causal inference" and have a ball.

[TheMadMonk]

21. I have noted in the past that it takes a fair degree of smarts...

...a good deal of education and damned near absolute dedication to successfully implement non-corporal disciplinary methods.

Nature, (red in tooth an claw) has evolved for every single vertebrate species, not to mention the vast majority of invertebrates, a very effective pain aversion response mechanism. For the more developed species a parallel pleasure reward reinforcemt mechanism has also evolved. But it's pain aversion that for the most part keeps an organism alive long enough to breed or otherwise usefully contribute to the continuation of the species.

And suddenly in a single generation, we've decreed that the primary mechanism of danger avoidance is not only not to be deliberately used for control, but that virtually every conceivable effort must be undertaken to avoid having that mechanism invoked environmentally except by the purest of accident. By fiat declared that a billion years of evollution is no longer relevant.

[Trillo]

61. "a billion years of evollution is no longer relevant"? Time difference....

There's a time difference between the pain perception of burning your hand in a fire, versus getting punished at some later time for something that occurred earlier. I can't see any reason why the fear response would be the same. In the latter case, fear response toward the person inflicting the punishment seems more likely.

[TexasObserver]

22. I've noticed, also, that children who were spanked ...

... tend to believe those ridiculous online "IQ" tests where everyone who takes the test makes at least 130.

[wickerwoman]

70. LOL. I know.

Who knew there were so many people with 130+ IQs who don't know the difference between anecdotal and statistical evidence?

[TexasObserver]

73. I always chortle at such reports.

First of all, a real IQ test takes hours and involves hundreds of questions.

Second, these absurdities online are designed to do one thing and one thing only: create traffic, and sites aren't going to create traffic by telling everyone who takes the test that their IQ is between 95 and 105. The tests are designed create high scores to fool gullible, uninformed readers.

Go to any message board anywhere. Post a link to an online IQ test. Ask readers to take the test and post their scores. The average scores will range 120+, often reaching up into 160+.

No one swears by those tests more than the dumbest member of my extended family, my nephew who dropped out of school in the 8th grade. He can't pass a GED, but he thinks he has an IQ of 135.

[trof]

23. Boy, Barbara Bush must have just beat the HELL out of Georgie.

:rofl:

[aikoaiko]

24. This researcher, Murray Straus, has been investigating the relations between corporal punishment and

...child development of problem behaviors for a while (although I really had heard anything from him for a few years). Here is the link the research center at the University of NH http://www.unh.edu/frl/index.html. They do decent work on various issues related to violence.

Its a difficult topic to study. Ethics precludes us from randomly assigning childrent to spanking and no spanking conditions. But as others have noted, determining causality and many confounding variables is a problem with this type of research.

Also, take what mainstream media say about research with a grain of salt. They almost always get it wrong. This was merely a report at a conference and hasn't been peer-reviewed.

On the other hand, all the anecdotes from people who were spanked and are brilliant are meaningless refutations of the research claim. The research was most likely based on aggregate data.

[undertheboardwalk]

26. my thoughts, some laws need a changin'

Good Evening. I am glad to see this issue discussed in America. I live in the state of Georgia, where corporal punishment is happening in schools - of all places, still to this day children submit themselves to paddlings. Can anyone believe this? My point being, the law must be changed. I believe no government official should have the ability to wield this kind of power over children, even as late as high school in some cases. My lawmaker told me there has not been enough public outcry on this issue. Which is total nonsense, because they have been told for a long time that this is affecting our student achievement negatively, especially for minority and disabled children. The other study that was released in August 2009 called Impairing Education by the ACLU/Human Rights Watch clearly demonstrates the problems with this going on in schools. I don't care what people do in their own homes (although I am not a spanker and use disciplinary measures that require thinking), but this nonsense of school officials in my state doing this is WRONG.

If anyone is interested in assisting in changing the law here in Georgia, please send me a pm. I have a facebook and developing a list of organizations that want to see it end in schools, including the National PTA, the National Association of School Nurses and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Incidentally-- please take this poll:
http://www.thepostsearchlight.com/polls/2009/sep/agree-corporal-punishment-policy/results/

[Incitatus]

27. Perhaps it's in their genes.

[AnnieBW]

28. I was spanked, and I'm pretty smart

My mom was a mean one with the wooden spoon, and I got my Dad's belt a few times. While I often joke that it caused brain damage, I consider myself to be highly intelligent.

[undertheboardwalk]

29. Georgia's performance in schools

It is interesting to note that the southern states that allow this paddling business in schools are the lowest performing states academically in the country. So I would love to see Strauss and Company due an analysis of our test performance scores in Georgia and see if there is an impact on student testing scores.

[triple point]

30. This doesn't appear to distinguish spanking from beating.

A swat on the butt is a universe away from a belt on the back. (having experienced both and even as a child recognizing the difference)

[undertheboardwalk]

32. yes, but

The fact is that the OTHER person actually doing the hitting can cross the line into abuse easily, when they are not in control.

I live in the state of Georgia where children are getting hit by educators and getting hurt..but it is all legal.

[triple point]

43. Okay, sure, I missed where that was mentioned in the first post.

I certainly don't condone corporal punishment by anybody who isn't a parent...

[BlooInBloo]

31. I knew there was a reason why I'm so stupid.

[AngryAmish]

33. Where is the control group?

You know, the group that should have been spanked and weren't because of experimental controls? Or the group whose parents were not inclined to do so but were convinced to do so? (Actually, some christian groups might make a natural control group in this way - I'm not kidding.)

Anyway, experiments without controls are not experiments. They are just making up facts to support your point of view.

I don't whup my kid but bad science makes my skin crawl.

[Deja Q]

57. Nowhere. Reality might skew results. Science is becoming like journalism.

Hacked up spin to achieve a desired emotional response.

That stuff is great for media and ad design. Not something that's supposed to have meaningless things like TRUST.

I haven't had training in psychology and I could do a better job setting up and running these tinpot toddler tests.

Not to mention, a whole slew of other issues...

Wasn't all this discussed yesterday too?

[BREMPRO]

66. just like there is a range of bad to good journalism, there is

also with science a range of quality. The researchers look experienced and the study looks like it has some merit. It needs peer review and more discussion, but the data and analysis do appear to correlate IQ and corporal punishment. A nervous, anxious and fearful child is by common sense one who may have more difficulty concentrating and have poorer brain function development. Common sense is not enough to influence public policy- studies like this are needed to present evidence. There are better and healthier ways to discipline kids than spanking.

[undertheboardwalk]

35. Enough is Enough - Georgia Needs to Immediately Abolish this in schools

OK, so I think I am making some progress when I received back a response from my lawmaker which leaves me very frustrated. He in part said that he doesn't see enough public outcry on the issue of corporal punishment in schools.

What?!! Do the lawmakers not watch the news?

This is what everyone needs to do today and in the days and weeks ahead. Send your Georgia Lawmaker and demand a repeal of OCGA 20-2-730, OCGA 20-2-731 and OCGA 20-2-732. Inform your legislator that Florida has introduced a measure, Louisianna introduced a measure and 30 states have outlawed corporal punishment in schools. Ohio just outlawed it this year. The poorest performing states still use the paddle. In your email put in the subject line "Repeal Corporal Punishment in Ga Public Schools" and keep sending it in!

Also, place a phone call to your lawmaker as well. Don't leave it to chance that they received your email. Follow up with a phone call and if you have time, sit down with who represents you.

Contact any child welfare organization and urge a public position from them, especially any organization centered in Georgia. Ask them to join this fight too and ask them to take a public position on this issue. The children of Georgia can no longer wait.

If your lawmaker claims 'local control' is needed on this issue, that is not true. The locals should not have control on a health and child welfare issue. They are not physicians! The American Academy of Pediatrics urges corporal punishment in schools be abolished.

Please write and call! Look up your lawmaker here: http://www.legis.state.ga.us/

[bertman]

38. My cousin is a world-renown best-selling author. I'm a regular guy who was kinda

smart in school. We grew up together, were the same age, went to the same schools. His parents were very light on the spankings; whereas, mine weren't shy about using the belt (maybe I was more of a troublemaker?). Anyway, we both tested out at the same IQ.

FWIW.

[MadMaddie]

42. My parents spanked us and my sister and I turned out just fine

I just started Grad School....stupid study.

[opihimoimoi]

46. Its TWUE...I noes a lot of them spankees and they are fucking dumb

only a few escape to adulthood as normal...the rest are LOLO

[JerseygirlCT]

47. But does that mean it's the spanking, or that parents who

are more intelligent don't spank, and have more intelligent children?

Does the correlation equal causation here?

Not that I mind hearing this - anything that teaches people not to beat their children is just fine by me.

[FreedomRain]

52. another theory

Smarter kids may more easily avoid punishment. I always did feel like I gave up a few points to cope with the trauma of physical abuse.

[JerseygirlCT]

54. I'm no scientist, but it seems like there are just too many variables

to be sure what caused what.

[Lerkfish]

49. this is a correlation at best, HOWEvER, I have never spanked my child

and he is in the advanced track at school, is extremely well behaved and has good manners.

so :shrug:

but, by the same token, my father never hesitated to strike me repeatedly, and I was in the top 1% of my class.

I have no idea. I just know in my heart, I feel BETTER about never spanking my child.

[LWolf]

50. My thoughts are here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=389&topic_id=6627517

[yodermon]

51. LINK TO PDF OF ORIGINAL STUDY.

Sorry for shouting.

http://pubpages.unh.edu/~mas2/CP51.pdf

Text is not selectable or else I'd post excerpts.
Notable is that the study controls for 10 variables that might be confounded with corporal punishment and cognitive ability:
Child's birth weight, age, race, gender, number of childern in the home, mother's age at birth, mother's education (wrt high school), and father living w/ mother.

[undertheboardwalk]

53. This study makes sense because

The southern states that still allow corporal punishment in its schools are the poorer performing states academically. I believe there should be more studies done. There is needs to be correlational work and comparison work between school districts that use it and school districts that don't. My children are in a non-paddling school district and we have some of the best performing schools in the state, even above national average.

[Hannah Bell]

64. They're also much poorer. Which do you think has more effect on school & test performance?

[undertheboardwalk]

67. my guess is

My guess is that if you do analysis of test scores in the schools that do paddle vs schools that don't, you will see lower test scores in the schools that do....

[Hannah Bell]

68. I don't have to guess. Income, social class & parent's education

predict children's educational success & "IQ" better than anything else.

The entire British social & business aristocracy used corporal punishment & sent their kids to schools that used same for hundreds of years.

It's the products of those elite schools who *invented* IQ tests.

[undertheboardwalk]

69. Is this a justification?

I don't see how any of this is a justification if that is what you are trying to do? Do you know many kids are abused everywhere....and that crosses ALL socioeconomic stratuses.

[Hannah Bell]

71. justification of what? & no, child abuse isn't uniformly distributed across all socioeconomic

strata.

[Hannah Bell]

65. but not father's income. or mother's.

[undertheboardwalk]

55. Here is a poll-- what do you think:

http://www.thepostsearchlight.com/polls/2009/sep/agree-corporal-punishment-policy/results/

[Bill McBlueState]

56. I have some anecdote that runs counter to the study's conclusion.

Therefore, the study is worthless.

(Just wanted to get Standard Response to Science Thread #381 in there one more time.)

[undertheboardwalk]

59. I have anecdote too

I have anecdote that says the report is right on

[kath]

75. Heh! Thanks for this.

The lack of understanding of science is scary, as is the lack of ability to read a scientific article (see above link in post #51) and see that the authors DID try to correct for confounding variables such as educational level of parents, SES, two-parent vs one-parent homes, birth weight, etc. Then again, how many understand the concept of controlling the sample for important variables??
Ack.

[Bill McBlueState]

58. Some obvious part of the methodology was left out of the mainstream media report

Thus, the researchers couldn't possibly have considered this, and the study is bunk.

(That's Standard Response to Science Thread #176.)

[undertheboardwalk]

60. Interactive Map on Corporal Punishment in Schools ACLU/HRW

http://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/features/us_map_esed/index.html?keepThis=true&TB_iframe=true&height=550&width=1000

[MajorChode]

72. Anyone who spanks their kids is a stupid asshole

Especially when you consider that non-lethal electric shock behavior modification devices are readily available, convenient to use, and far more effective.

[dysfunctional press]

74. i tested at 168, and my dad constantly beat the shit out of me...

i wonder what my scores would be like if he hadn't?

he just might have saved the world...



well played, old man.