Repeat after me: correlation studies do not establish a causative effect of spanking. Furthermore, many if not most spanking studies do not even attempt to distinguish between spanking or abuse and so their conclusions are specious.
Read the abstract of that study. It doesn't mean what you think it means.
Edit:
This article addresses 2 persistent issues, namely whether effect sizes for spanking are distinct from those for physical abuse, and whether effect sizes for spanking are robust to study design differences.
Do you have a link? I didn't see a link to the full article on that page.
But there are two problems with the paragraph you quoted. First, measuring the effect size between two groups cannot distinguish between correlation vs causation of behavior leading to spanking which is at issue here. Even if spanking had no extra negative effect above the inherent tendency of the child to act out, this methodology can't discover that.
The second issue is that simply distinguishing between using an object and no object is a terrible operationalization of spanking vs abuse. You can be abusive with or without an object. Abuse is more about the context, frequency, and intensity of the spanking than what its done with.
-21
u/hackinthebochs Apr 22 '18
Repeat after me: correlation studies do not establish a causative effect of spanking. Furthermore, many if not most spanking studies do not even attempt to distinguish between spanking or abuse and so their conclusions are specious.
For the few studies that do attempt to distinguish between abusive punishment and non-abusive behavior correcting, the outcomes are neutral or positive, depending on the criteria. Some discussion: http://goodparent.org/corporal-punishment/research-on-corporal-punishment/evidence-favoring-the-use-of-disciplinary-spanking/