Children who are spanked have lower IQs, new research finds
September 25, 2009
The higher the percent of parents in a nation who used corporal punishment with teenagers, the lower the national average IQ. Credit: Murray Straus
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."
"It is time for psychologists to recognize the need to help parents end the use of corporal punishment and incorporate that objective into their teaching and clinical practice. It also is time for the United States to begin making the advantages of not spanking a public health and child welfare focus, and eventually enact federal no-spanking legislation," he says.
IQ and Spanking in America
Straus found that children in the United States who were spanked had lower IQs four years later than those who were not spanked.
American children who were spanked had a lower cognitive ability score four years later. Credit: Murray Straus
Straus and Mallie Paschall, senior research scientist at the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, studied nationally representative samples of 806 children ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9. Both groups were retested four years later.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.
"How often parents spanked made a difference. The more spanking the, the slower the development of the child's mental ability. But even small amounts of spanking made a difference," Straus says.
IQ and Spanking Worldwide
Straus also found a lower national average IQ in nations in which spanking was more prevalent. His analysis indicates the strongest link between corporal punishment and IQ was for those whose parents continued to use corporal punishment even when they were teenagers.
Straus and colleagues in 32 nations used data on corporal punishment experienced by 17,404 university students when they were children.
According to Straus, there are two explanations for the relation of corporal punishment to lower IQ.
The More Spanking, the Greater the Probability of Post-Traumatic Stress Symptoms.
First, 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.Second, a higher national level of economic development underlies both fewer parents using corporal punishment and a higher national IQ.
The good news is that the use of corporal punishment has been decreasing worldwide, which may signal future gains in IQ across the globe.
"The worldwide trend away from corporal punishment is most clearly reflected in the 24 nations that legally banned corporal punishment by 2009. Both the European Union and the United Nations have called on all member nations to prohibit corporal punishment by parents. Some of the 24 nations that prohibit corporal punishment by parents have made vigorous efforts to inform the public and assist parents in managing their children. In others little has been done to implement the prohibition," Straus says.
"Nevertheless, there is evidence that attitudes favoring corporal punishment and actual use of corporal punishment have been declining even in nations that have done little to implement the law and in nations which have not prohibited corporal punishment," he says.
Sep 07, 2009
1) Parents with low IQs tend to have kids with low IQs.
2) Children who have significantly lower IQs may be frustrating to parents who don't know how to handle them.
3) Getting spanked a couple times is a real world education, since one's peers may do similar violent things. If coping with the real world lowers IQ, then there's no avoiding it. Would I rather have been hit occasionally by my parents (which I can hardly remember) or the neighborhood jerk who "didn't like my attitude"?
Another study proving what it was paid to prove, and producing a "politically correct" result. I.e., worse than useless, in a sense, a calculated lie.
Yep. Less than worthless because some will think the "study" has meaning.
Its only meaning is the ability of pseudoscientists to fabricate correlations where none exist to promote their agenda.
I doubt that the commenters here have read the study through in any manner. Like all statistical information, it can be manipulated if in the wrong hands and it can be manipulated in it's entirety from concerns around it's origins and data sets, with regards to their choosing and application proper.
All I'm saying is that I'm looking at the results of a study, and I have no idea of it's origins and I have no idea what it means.
However I -suspect- a broad correlation, but whether the correlation is universally applicable is the big deal and only reading the study and then doing my own to version of it will bring any sense of finality to my opinions and musings.. Just like all other studies we may read of.
As for parents and child IQ's. My parents are nowhere near as IQ laden as this kid. And no, we were not spanked, ever. Genetics can combine in interesting ways.
Just to be clear, I have 3 children and have not spanked any of them.
My point is the ridiculous intrusions into our lives by certain people by using "science" to do so. Leave science and scientists out of social engineering and out of politics. As ordinary citizens, we should not allow the government to levy a new tax based on false science, as is being attempted regarding global warming. The average citizen will only grow weary and distrusting of scientific study if science is misused in this manner.
Huh... sounds like it's working, then? Spanking sounds like a vaccine against bad behavior!
"Percent Spanked or Hit A Lot As a Teenager"
No one ever said anything about abuse (see "hit" and "a lot"). When I was growing up I got spanked maybe once or twice every few weeks, depending on my devilishness at the time. But never was I hit by my parents.
There's a difference between a belt or switch to the behind and being struck with a closed fist (slapping is a little over-the-top too). My father always sat me down and explained exactly why I was about to be punished, and told me it was because he loved me and that he didn't want to see me grow up to be a miscreant.
My IQ is around 130 by the way.
hellfire, children in the 1890's, 2 year olds in fact, knew how to sit still and be quiet. Why? Because they got whacked if they didn't. Children have been whacked since the beginning of time.
It's a wonder we ever came down from the trees.
Is it not possible that parents with a low IQ tend to spank their children more? Low IQ parents usually mean low IQ children.
Yes, how original, you are all so brilliant for restating the usual tropes.
In reality strong correlation usually hints at causation (though not always, and it can't be proven) and lends support to followup studies. Also, their are ways to control for the other variables such as IQ of the parents so the relationship can be teased out. It's not perfect in a correlational study, but it definitely isn't worthless and attempts to brand it as such are ignorant at best.
I have smacked my girls but only in love and NEVER in anger, and only up to about 6yrs and 9ys old.
My second is rather obstinate-I blame her Natal gifts from the planets.(-See Sleeping beauty).
"Give me a child up to 7 and I give you the man."
Both my children are showing signs of a very high IQ too.
Low IQ can also mean lower socioeconomic conditions; I've been studying nutrition lately and apparently low magnesium and calcium can disrupt your mood so you lose your temper much quicker and over very silly things, like shutting the door too hard;
Low magnesium increases the startle reflex-this is probably the cause of 'friendly fire' too.
My mum was a diabetic and I suspect she had this nutritional deficiency that affected her mood/temper.
Ive talked to my 7 year old about this study and he was able to come up with quite a few reasons why this study is flawed, and he himself doesnt believe it. He asked me if grownups beleive this study, I said some do. He asked why, I just shrugged my shoulders as I didnt want to discuss how brainwashed some people are and how dishonest others are.
Now on the day where we can create two clones of a high IQ person and establish them within perfectly matching environments and then beat one of them, this study will have merit. Until that day, it's an exercise in futility. Anyone questioning that needs a re-education in the scientific method.
There's nothing in this article to show that causation has been established, only correlation, but you don't need clones to establish a probable causation either (and a single clone pair wouldn't even do that), though they're obviously helpful. You only need to control for other variables which might be causative.
If it were otherwise, the causative link between smoking and lung cancer would not be considered 'proven' (i.e. overwhelmingly probable). Many a heavy smoker has escaped the disease, and no small number of non-smokers have contracted it. I'd be surprised if cases don't exist where one identical twin (natural clone) smoked and the other didn't; I wouldn't rely solely on such a case in trying to reach a conclusion.
Oh yeah, I am so stupid. What happens is that the study is so irrelevant that a lot of people decided to spend time writing against how stupid it is...
The truth hurts, and one will see strong emotional reactions when some truth is presented.
People who are attacked in any way by their parents are not the same that people who are raised with care. Anger and hatred is a mental disorder that our parents give us.
I was treated very poorly as a kid and teenager, by the way.
And actually, regarding some of the comments, when parents attack their children is way more hurting than when is a stranger. You will never forget the times your parents beat you up. If you do so it is probably because you are doing a strong conscious effort to suppress those memories. Take some LSD or some marijuana, and the memories will come straight to you. Those are most of the contents of what people call "bad trips".
It is hard to ACCEPT the truth, it hurts
That's the way I read the information here and on the PIRE website. The research is poorly presented or poorly done, could be either but somebody is going to get a spanking over this.
if you have an animal in an experimental context, and you supply punishment, and then you measure stress hormones in blood. Guess what, they are going to be up! no surprise here.
The constant release of stress hormones has been proof to produce apoptosis in neuronal tissues. And I am not sure if the "scientists" realized that you need your brain to think!@
And another thing. If someone is brutalized (verbally or physically), they can be big achievers, of course they can. They feel worthless and they need that they need to proof they are worth.
There are many biographies of eminent scientists with painful childhood scars, that probably had to do with their performance. An example, Isaac Newton who was abandoned by his mother. Or Paul Dirac.
I will raise my child to be like Richard Feynman, who was excellent due to the careful foster of his father, not the deeply repressed feelings of worthless like Sir Isaac Newton.
My son name is Isaac...
Cause or effect? Perhaps smarter kids know how to manage their parents better, to get what they want by compromising, placating, salesmanship. Future politicians.
Bad science, indeed.
Bad science, indeed.
Hmm, now I have to admit my IQ is lower, because I was always spanked by my old-schooled parents. Indeed I was slower than those who wasn't spanked at all who I know, but I'm changing faster as slowly liberated. So, be careful, guys.
1) for the parents being closer to using violence. (even illness)
2) for the children lower IQ and development.
And there are a million reasons why there is a strested home environment.
I don't mind the data but I do mind the assumed direct correlation.
Right now seriously flawed studies from how parents interact with their children, religion, health care, global warming, how conservatives think, etc. are being presented by so called scientists who instead of trying to find the truth, want to prove their point that certain points of view is more superior than another. Then the media who are just as biased, and want to promote these same views, instead of investigating and reporting, promote the studies that purportedly prove their views and ignore or discredit
I am reminded of a quote from Henry David Thoreau. Fashion is not cloths, but leftwing ideas, Paris is the universities, and America is the news media.
We worship not the Graces, nor the Parcae, but Fashion. She spins and weaves and cuts with full authority. The head monkey at Paris puts on a traveler's cap, and all the monkeys in America do the same
- spend time and money on research like this?
- believe the faulty research?
Spend research money on something that counts.
I bet my gggg-uncle Thoreau would agree, but who really knows?
That is a whole different concept than giving a swat to the 4-year old who tries to cross the street without you despite repeated explanations of why they shouldn't do that.
If you are living in fear of being beaten as a teenager when you are trying to become an adult all while finally learning more complex information, it may just impact your later life...just possibly!
Hmmm...you think perhaps someone had an agenda with this one by labeling it as simple corporal punishment of children?
Excuse me, but what an ignorant statement. You have it backwards, leave politics and social engineering out of science. In other words, don't try to politicize science and don't try interfere with science if it runs counter to the wishes of the social engineers.
You are clearly not a scientist or engineer to say such a thing nor apparently even understand anything about the scientific method.
A scientific approach is the best approach when trying to objectively in a systematic fashion acquire information about social phenomena. If politics was infused with a more scientific attitude then we would be living in a much more harmonious world.
In regard to this article, I haven't read the study but I suspect that other factors weren't accounted for. Correlation doesn't necessarily point to causality. Stop putting quotations around studies you disagree with. That is the mark of a laymen idiot in my book.
Much better to have them enlist in the military
where gentleness, kindness, and compassion prevail.
Or is that why 'military intelligence' is an oxymoron? :)
Any references to archaic literature like the above is suspect, as those works were based on an understanding of human behavior governed by god or Freudian psychology. These were rendered obsolete by the acknowledgement of evolutionary psychology, as was most philosophy up to that time. Studies like the one above reflect ongoing efforts to clean up this whole sociopolitical mess.
It happened in New York City years ago. The Social Services / Social workers were taken to court because they were taking children out of homes that had no reason to be taken from the homes . The courts decided these social workers were **criminally** taking the children out of homes in order to "make work" for themselves.
The COURTS had to become involved.
These studies are just more of the same 'evidence' in order to take children out of "abusive" homes and the ability to strike your child **at all** is going to be frowned upon and may even become part of your permanent record / IE: possible child abuser.
Imho ..
Lower IQ children may respond better to spanking. Parents use what works best sometimes.
Performance IQ and Gene Link Confirmed
http://record.wus...918.html
/The first sign of someone with an agenda is publicly questioning the agenda of those whose preparation and abilities clearly exceed their own
//People who cite their membership in MENSA or their own IQs do not generally understand the concept
///They did know the IQ scores of the child studies at the outset, that's kind of the point
////"representational," sample
@eisenfaust
so you cite one failed example and use it to defame them all? Everybody knows what that's a symptom of. Any other groups y'all wanna dismiss en masse?
@psychodad
I would like herein to discount most all psychology adherents and as reference I would cite each prior generation whose theories are thoroughly discounted by the gen to follow it. This article has merit- hitting kids or anyone is bad.
of our language and culture and much more accurately respond to
expectations and have more realistic expectations themselves. This
leads to "correct" responses so they avoid harsher direction - often
spanking.
Spanking is a result of lack of intelligence, not the cause.
The point of my entry was just that!. KEEP SCIENCE AND SCIENTISTS PURE. don't use them for the paymaster's social engineering or tax generating purposes.
THe influence is undeniable. Just look at the global warming scam. (check out all of the recent Global Warming stories on New scientist to get a feel for just how ridiculous it has become. Most recently New Scientist posted a story about how the tenderness of my pork was being impacted by global warming! Ugh.).
THe poor scientist, being just like evryone else, needs to feed his family, so he unfortunately is able to be influenced by the social and tax engineers. THIS MUST STOP. RETURN THE PURITY TO SCIENTIFIC STUDY.
I may be a layman, and I may be an idiot, but even a layman idiot can spot a farce. THis study was a farce, and judging by most comments here, most people would agree.
look at it as a spectrum. the farther you go up the scale the easier it is to use other methods. however, the higher up the scale the more your methods better be based on some sort of reason and logic. otherwise you end up beating the smart ones stupid.
shame that social engineers can experiment in peoples lives. kind of like bridge engineers experimenting in their building creations and learning by how many bridges they make collapse with poor ideas they claim (if work) put us at the forefront of 'progress'. but progess to where? if it isnt to go out and be fruitful in the universe, then what is it. i am sure that stagnation is not progress, and thats what liberal left want as it affords the rulership genetic dominance in a wait state
I'd be willing to say the causative here is the coddling or employing childish punishments of any type. For example, giving a teenager a time out probably socially retards the child as well. We've all seen the products of "mother hens".
They are not the ones spreading lunacy.
Enought is enough. What the left and right wing people of integrity should do is humiliate the scientists and media when they put out biased trash and call it science. What I would like to do is debate the issues with accurate facts.
I think we can agree that any study that demeans traditional parents, christians (or any religious or non religious people), conservatives or liberals is just promoting an agenda.
A classic experiment (for the "scientists"), repeated many times, shows that when a two rats are placed in an experimental chamber, and one of them receives random electric shocks, the rat receiving the shocks will attack the second rat without any involvement of the second rat. So, application of stress to a rat elicits aggression towards organisms in the immediate space.
All you that favor beating children, you can't deal with your anger, your environment gives you stress, and your children pay the consequences.
violent = lower IQ = low acceptance = low learning
Those are the people who blame the Jews for the holocaust and the blacks for slavery = "If they would be intelligent, they would expect that in any moment an army of angry pigs would come to kill them"
As for your children "if he would be intelligent, he would vanish"
I bet the highlights of the childhood of the "child beaters", besides being beat themselves, has some other "nice family traditions"... your daddies probably gave you more than spankings, they might gave you some non-consensual mutilation of functioning sexual tissues? (=circumcision)
that is how they raised such loving people!
!!!! HORRORS!
Don't they understand that describing "nations" as having lower IQs than some other "nations" encourages a bias based on national origins!!!
P.S. ...normalizing IQ tests across nations must be real "fun" given the tremendous range in exposure to logical thinking, testing, written language, television, etc. etc.
Can we now say STUPID STUDY to the 3rd degree?
Child buttock-battering for the purpose of gaining compliance is nothing more than an inherited bad habit.
Its a good idea for people to take a look at what they are doing, and learn how to DISCIPLINE instead of hit.
There are several reasons why child bottom-slapping isn't a good idea. Here are some good, quick reads recommended by professionals:
Plain Talk About Spanking
by Jordan Riak,
The Sexual Dangers of Spanking Children
by Tom Johnson,
NO VITAL ORGANS THERE So They Say
by Lesli Taylor M.D. and Adah Maurer Ph.D.
Most compelling of all reasons to abandon this worst of all bad habits is the fact that buttock-battering can be unintentional sexual abuse for some children. There is an abundance of educational resources, testimony, documentation etc available on the subject that can easily be found by doing a little research with the recommended reads.
Getting back to the original study. Does anybody believe this study was well done and the results accurate?
Yep. As best it could be, given that it is part of what scientists call, "normal science." Just that those questioning it's results, agenda, etc., appear to have very little understanding of what the terms in the article actually mean, how to evaluate psychological studies, or really any desire to actually learn. So there's very little else to do in the way of discussion, other than watch people get angry about well-meaning scientists who appear to have done much more to help humanity than the spankers in the comments ever will.
/armchair quarterbacking without knowledge of the rules of the game may be fun, but is pretty meaningless
That's been the field of psychology since it's inception.
Hard to overlook though the millions of people who'd report better lives based on the application of psychological findings. I like to be critical of the science; I think it improves it. Just because it's findings contradict what some people wish it would find, however, is no reason to discount the science itself. Neither does the state of the science's methods: we invest tons of money in meteorology. That science's ability to predict local weather patterns is notoriously deficient. I think it's worth continuing to study it (and fund research in it) though, because maybe over time they can improve it to a more meaningful state. If I just dismissed meteorology outright because it was too fuzzy of a science or didn't predict the weather I wanted (which explains the reaction to this IQ & spanking article particularly I think), I and others would suffer from doing so. I often am called upon to support conclusions I don't like, but the empirical evidence is there
When my 7 year old is able to poke holes in the study there is something deeply wrong. Correlation doesnt prove anything especially in this case. Its just as poor as saying 100% of anyone who has ever breathed O2 will die.
I don't disagree, however, to help people through gradually accelerated understanding and one on one sessions is quite different from stating unequivocally that spanking makes kids' IQs drop.
If the article wasn't so definite in it's conclusions, with such poor controls and methodology, I may be able to see the merit in it.
Any good study needs to control and define its variables. What is a spank(people with agendas hate to define things... anyone remember the phrase it depends on what is is?) Define what IQ tests your going to use. Do the parents only rely on spankings? How many spanks? Are they inner city kids? Are they kids raised by a single parent? Do the parents use drugs? Is there verbal abuse?
To do this study correctly you need a good sampling of dual parents, in the same socioeconomic situation, one set agrees only to agreed upon spanking (5 slaps to backside, no marks) (no talking to), one using both spanks (again 5 slaps to backside, no marks) and talking tos, and one not using any physical punishments. Take IQ at begining, then 1 year and 2 years later.
The Lower IQ could lead to a propensity for corporal punishment rather than vice versa.
As lower iq children are generally at a disadvantage from birth anyway it just suggests that spanking is a norm in the up bringing of people with lower iqs.
The simple fact is that it's always better if you can restrain yourself from spanking but as we are animals and have our own hormonal and psychological factors involved in our decision making processes that it not always possible.
But that's not how some people see it though apparently. Instead they assert a social agenda from this research. I wonder at times if it's something in the way psychologists deliver their findings that somehow puts people off or makes them think that. Psychologists are generally not good enough sociologists to form an agenda
Probably too reflective. I'll get back to being snarky next time, I promise
(1) Smacked children have lower IQs in virtue, not of being smacked, but in virtue of low child IQs being (according to some people here) causally correlated with low parent IQs, and parents with low IQs being more likely (for whatever reason) to smack.
(2) Children with lower IQs are more likely to get smacked (a correlation between low IQ and bad behaviour?).
(3) Smacked children have lower IQs in virtue, not of any causal correlation with their parents IQs, but in virtue of smacking being associated (according to the researchers) with increased post-traumatic stress symptoms, which (according to the researchers) tends to cause low IQs.
So, which of the hypotheses best accounts for the data?
It strikes me as obvious that (3) is correct, given the already well known correlation between smacking->SRESS->low IQ. Please read the whole article before trying to defend your right to abuse children!