Researchers Deserve a Better Critique: Response to

Overview

Journal Marriage Fam Rev

Date 2024 Jan 30

PMID 38288142

Authors

George W Holden

Andrew Grogan-Kaylor

Joan E Durrant

Elizabeth T Gershoff

Affiliations

Soon will be listed here.

Abstract

This commentary addresses the critique by Larzelere, Gunnoe, Roberts, and Ferguson (2017: , 24-35) ostensibly concerning the quality of research on "positive parenting" but actually critiquing physical punishment research. The critique revealed that the authors have a poor understanding of positive parenting. After explicating the different meanings of that term and describing what positive parenting is, we then address each of their four critiques of the physical punishment research. Each critique was flawed in multiple ways. After identifying their errors and correcting misinformation, we then raise broader issues about children's right not to be hit and how professional organizations are increasingly recognizing the need and calling for an end to all physical punishment of children.

Citing Articles

There is still no evidence that physical punishment is effective or beneficial: Reply to Larzelere, Gunnoe, Ferguson, and Roberts (2019) and Rohner and Melendez-Rhodes (2019).

Gershoff E, Goodman G, Miller-Perrin C, Holden G, Jackson Y, Kazdin A Am Psychol. 2019; 74(4):503-505.

PMID: 31070406 PMC: 6557718. DOI: 10.1037/amp0000474.

References

Oddone Paolucci E, Violato C . A meta-analysis of the published research on the affective, cognitive, and behavioral effects of corporal punishment. J Psychol. 2004; 138(3):197-221. DOI: 10.3200/JRLP.138.3.197-222. View

Talwar V, Arruda C, Yachison S . The effects of punishment and appeals for honesty on children's truth-telling behavior. J Exp Child Psychol. 2014; 130:209-17. DOI: 10.1016/j.jecp.2014.09.011. View

Booker J, Ollendick T, Dunsmore J, Greene R . Perceived Parent-Child Relations, Conduct Problems, and Clinical Improvement Following the Treatment of Oppositional Defiant Disorder. J Child Fam Stud. 2016; 25(5):1623-1633. PMC: 4894338. DOI: 10.1007/s10826-015-0323-3. View

Day D, Roberts M . An analysis of the physical punishment component of a parent training program. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1983; 11(1):141-52. DOI: 10.1007/BF00912184. View

Lui P, Rollock D . Tiger mother: popular and psychological scientific perspectives on Asian culture and parenting. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2013; 83(4):450-6. DOI: 10.1111/ajop.12043. View

Bean A, Roberts M . The effect of time-out release contingencies on changes in child noncompliance. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 1981; 9(1):95-105. DOI: 10.1007/BF00917860. View

Tennant Jr F, Detels R, Clark V . Some childhood antecedents of drug and alcohol abuse. Am J Epidemiol. 1975; 102(5):377-85. DOI: 10.1093/oxfordjournals.aje.a112176. View

Baumrind D, Larzelere R, Cowan P . Ordinary physical punishment: is it harmful? Comment on Gershoff (2002). Psychol Bull. 2002; 128(4):580-9; discussion 602-11. DOI: 10.1037/0033-2909.128.4.580. View

Olson S, Lopez-Duran N, Lunkenheimer E, Chang H, Sameroff A . Individual differences in the development of early peer aggression: integrating contributions of self-regulation, theory of mind, and parenting. Dev Psychopathol. 2011; 23(1):253-66. PMC: 4100535. DOI: 10.1017/S0954579410000775. View

10.

Greene R, Ablon J, Goring J, Raezer-Blakely L, Markey J, Monuteaux M . Effectiveness of collaborative problem solving in affectively dysregulated children with oppositional-defiant disorder: initial findings. J Consult Clin Psychol. 2004; 72(6):1157-64. DOI: 10.1037/0022-006X.72.6.1157. View

11.

Gershoff E, Lansford J, Sexton H, Davis-Kean P, Sameroff A . Longitudinal links between spanking and children's externalizing behaviors in a national sample of White, Black, Hispanic, and Asian American families. Child Dev. 2012; 83(3):838-43. PMC: 7988802. DOI: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01732.x. View

12.

Gershoff E, Ansari A, Purtell K, Sexton H . Changes in parents' spanking and reading as mechanisms for Head Start impacts on children. J Fam Psychol. 2015; 30(4):480-91. PMC: 4885802. DOI: 10.1037/fam0000172. View

13.

Ma J, Han Y, Grogan-Kaylor A, Delva J, Castillo M . Corporal punishment and youth externalizing behavior in Santiago, Chile. Child Abuse Negl. 2012; 36(6):481-90. PMC: 3493175. DOI: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2012.03.006. View

14.

Cornfield J, Haenszel W, Hammond E, Lilienfeld A, Shimkin M, Wynder E . Smoking and lung cancer: recent evidence and a discussion of some questions. 1959. Int J Epidemiol. 2009; 38(5):1175-91. DOI: 10.1093/ije/dyp289. View

15.

Greene R, Ablon J, Hassuk B, Regan K, Martin A . Innovations: child & adolescent psychiatry: use of collaborative problem solving to reduce seclusion and restraint in child and adolescent inpatient units. Psychiatr Serv. 2006; 57(5):610-2. DOI: 10.1176/ps.2006.57.5.610. View

16.

Wang M, Kenny S . Parental physical punishment and adolescent adjustment: bidirectionality and the moderation effects of child ethnicity and parental warmth. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2014; 42(5):717-30. DOI: 10.1007/s10802-013-9827-8. View

17.

Ramsden S, Hubbard J . Family expressiveness and parental emotion coaching: their role in children's emotion regulation and aggression. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2002; 30(6):657-67. DOI: 10.1023/a:1020819915881. View

18.

Anda R, Felitti V, Douglas Bremner J, Walker J, Whitfield C, Perry B . The enduring effects of abuse and related adverse experiences in childhood. A convergence of evidence from neurobiology and epidemiology. Eur Arch Psychiatry Clin Neurosci. 2005; 256(3):174-86. PMC: 3232061. DOI: 10.1007/s00406-005-0624-4. View

19.

. Effective discipline for children. Paediatr Child Health. 2009; 9(1):37-50. PMC: 2719514. DOI: 10.1093/pch/9.1.37. View

20.

Li J, Julian M . Developmental relationships as the active ingredient: a unifying working hypothesis of "what works" across intervention settings. Am J Orthopsychiatry. 2012; 82(2):157-66. DOI: 10.1111/j.1939-0025.2012.01151.x. View