Differences in Corporal Punishment by parents in 32 Nations and its Relation to National Differences in IQ
Date
2009
Authors
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Publisher
14th International Conference On Violence, Abuse And Trauma
Abstract
A previous study found that spanking by parents of two nationally representative age cohorts of children found that the more spanking at the start of the study, the more the child fell behind in development of cognitive ability when tested again four years later. There is also evidence of a world-wide decrease in use of corporal punishment (CP) by parents and of a world-wide increase in IQ. The combination of these three sets of research results suggested the hypothesis that the decrease in use of CP is part of the explanation for increase IQ in many nations. A preliminary test of this hypothesis was tested using data on CP experienced by 17,404 university students in 32 nations and data on national average IQ scores. The results show that the higher the percent of parents who used CP, the lower the national average IQ. These results provide additional evidence on the harmful side-effects of CP. Because the historic decrease in use of CP is accelerating, these results also suggest future gains in national IQ. (Author Abstract)
Description
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Article
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Keywords
child abuse, physical punishment, psychological effects, learning, research, International Resources
Citation
Straus, M. A. (2009). Differences in corporal punishment by parents in 32 Nations and its relation to national differences in IQ. In 14th International Conference On Violence, Abuse And Trauma, San Diego.