What nickel-plated nonsense: Spanking can lower children’s IQ!
There is no mention of this research being published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is both a bad omen and an obstacle to examining it in detail, but I would initially question the statistical significance of the small difference observed and then ask what controls for social class were used. Lower class people both smack more and have lower IQ so any significant difference is most likely to be a class effect, not an effect of spanking
SMACKING, long used by parents to discipline naughty children, could cause more than tears. Research revealed it can also lower a child’s IQ, with those smacked up to three times a week having a lower IQ due to psychological stress.
US-based sociologist Professor Murray Straus, who studied the impact of smacking for 40 years, likened the effects of corporal punishment to post-traumatic stress, affecting a child’s mental development. He called on governments to outlaw corporal punishment.
After studying 800 toddlers aged between two and four over a four-year period, he found those who were subjected to smacking had an IQ five points lower than that of a child who wasn’t physically disciplined. “The results of this research have major implications for the well-being of children across the globe,” he said. “All parents want smart children. This research shows that avoiding smacking and correcting misbehaviour in other ways can help that.”
Children aged five to nine years who were smacked regularly had an IQ 2.8 points lower. Dr Straus said children who constantly faced physical punishment lived in fear and suffered stress, which was associated with poorer academic performance.
While not an advocate of smacking, Sydney psychologist Dr Judith Kennedy said parents who gave an occasional tap on the bottom should not fear damaging their child. “But a child who is suppressed through physical punishment regularly is going to behave differently,” Dr Kennedy said.
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Posted by JonJayRay on September 25, 2009 9:24 am
» Filed Under Agenda based science, News, Parenting, Political Correctness, Psychology, Research/surveys, Science/pseudo-science, Social Engineering
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4 Responses to “What nickel-plated nonsense: Spanking can lower children’s IQ!”
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Maybe a lower IQ precedes the smacking. Maybe these kids get smacked more because they can’t get hold of how to behave as well as their more clever peers? It’s just that old correlation/causation thing again. Oh well, I’m glad i’m done making kids.
I guess then I am must have been supra genius, before my parents spanked me! Oh woe, what loss to the world!
Here’s a thought.
So – you lose a few IQ points with regular spankings.
OTOH – you may live longer by learning that doing dumb things has painful consequences at an earlier age before you can really forsee said consequences through life experience.
What nonsense. Let’s count the ways:
1. There is no mention of publication in any peer-reviewed journal, where experts can examine the methodology, data and conclusions.Instead Mr. Straus publishes his beliefs through a news release.
2. The purported difference in IQ is so small it is statistically meaningless. Literally.
3. The study group is so small it probably invalidates any conclusions, especially with such a microscopic difference in IQ’s.
3. There is no indication that spanking CAUSES the purported (minimal) difference in IQ. Spanking could more likely be CORRELATED with low IQ’s. There could be many causes of lower IQ’s. Since constantly severely punishing a child is typical “low life behavior,” a child who is being constantly physically punished is perhaps more likely the product of a broken home,of particular racial and ethnic groups, the child of a mother who did not have good pre-natal nutrition, whose parents do not read to him or take him to enriching activities, who has one parent in the home rather than two, and so on. Idiots like this fellow Straus do not understand the difference between causation and correlation. Instead their statements are driven by their own politics. Here, Straus is anti-spanking so he blames a (non-existent) IQ difference on spanking.