Effect of corporal punishment on later delinquency rate - Dissertation Example

EFFECT OF CORPORAL PUNISHMENT ON LATER DELINQUENCY RATES Corporal punishment can be defined as use of physical force to elicit pain or discomfort, but not injury, to correct or punish a particular behavior of a child. Strength of physical force may vary from just a light slap to spanking or lashing with some object. In literature spanking, beating, whipping hitting and other euphemisms has been used for corporal punishment. There are basically three different levels at which corporal punishment are instituted. At a domestic level it involves families where children are punished either by their parents or other senior members of family. At a school level children are disciplined using corporal punishment mostly by the principle of that institution or sometimes by the teachers themselves. The third level is the judicial level where court sentence some form of corporal punishment to modify the anti-social behavior of a criminal. In this particular paper I will be discussing more of the first two levels of corporal punishment and their subsequent effect on children. The effects of corporal punishment on any individual can involve a broad spectrum of psychological aspects where many factors influence a particular outcome. Corporal punishment is an ancient trend. It was associated to religious aspects not long ago in the ideology of original sins and possession by devils. After going through much of the literature I noticed that researchers are of two different opinions when it comes to corporal punishment. Some believes corporal punishment is incorporated in effective parenting and required to prevent any individual to develop anti-social behavior while others believe that corporal punishment leads to negative emotions capable of invoking anti-social behavior. (Miller 2009). I agree with the latter half and hypothesize that corporal punishment later increase delinquency rates. Although corporal punishment is aimed to make children realize their mistake and repent but in turn it give rise to negative emotions. It invokes shame, resentment, fear and hostility. (Dorpat 2007). These are just the initial emotions and still it engulfs the child forcing him to form a resistant shell that defies abstaining from the original mistake, the stimulus for his punishment. The exhibition of these boiling emotions may not be immediate but they will become evident in later on and as I mentioned earlier the picture varies depending on many different elements. It gives birth to a volcano dormant initially; giving a false sense that the treatment of corporal punishment is working but dilemma arise when countdown stop and explosions begins. It is possible for child to develop hatred and anger towards the person institutionalizing the punishment. So it is very important to identify those who are directly involved to understand their influence on the child. As discussed earlier the first two levels of corporal punishment involve parents and teachers. These two are the main institutions to provide the basic learning and guidance that can invoke consciousness in a child and make him a good person. Imagine if they both are at fault in the mind of that innocent child. The consequences can be disastrous. Not all parents react in same way when their child misbehaves. Some will punish regularly, some rarely and others may not punish them at all but majority falls under the second category. (Straus et al 1994). When corporal punishment is properly planned, controlled and without overwhelming emotions it is called Instrumental Corporate Punishment. On the contrary if it is sudden, uncontrolled and with the outburst of emotions it is said to be Impulsive Corporate Punishment. It has been analyzed by many researches that those parents using Instrumental type often punish them on regular basis hence their children are more receptive. It follows the principle of negative reinforcement. When parents use corporate punishment and child complies, it negatively reinforces parents to stop such punishment. Similarly child compliance is also negatively reinforced by parent’s cessation of corporal punishment. (O’Donohue et al 1995). Whereas, Impulsive corporal punishment is often an outcome when other means of discipline fail and parents have no other option. They often burst out in frustration and anger. This type of corporate punishment results in less immediate compliance and more fear and anger in children. How this non compliance brings about an effect using negative reinforcement is discussed later in this paper. Naturally, most of the parents do not want to punish and if possible will try to avoid it. Therefore, corporal punishment not only affects the victim but also produce feel of guilt, stress, remorse and regret in the parents as well. It can also raise marital conflicts, a unique aspect not usually associated with the issue of corporal punishment but antagonism of ideas between parents is a possibility. (Saunders et al 2010). We need to dissect this issue and find out what changes take place in an individual psychologically, emotionally and mentally when corporal punishment is used to modify behavior. These three aspects are often interlinked. When punishment is inflicted a child exhibit many emotions such as fear, distress sense of helplessness but most important of all is shame and humiliation that is suffered. This emotion is especially a key factor in developing psychological changes in an individual and if repeated can even lead to disabling psychiatric illnesses. (Dorpat 2007). Child shares a special bond with their parents. Naturally he is emotionally inclined towards them for protection and care. But when corporate punishment disrupts this bond the immediate negative emotions of insecurity and rejection leads to psychic trauma. Many falsely perceive that the pain elicited during punishment has the main impact on children. But as we discussed in the definition of corporate punishment, there is no physical injury. I want to emphasize the fact that the force used to hit during corporate punishment is minimal and its effect may not last very long. For example, a child may not recall physical pain endured during punishment but the emotional aspect such as shame and humiliation attached to it can have a long lasting effect. Moreover, this feeling is amplified if induced by a person we take as our mentor or protector. This constant emotional torture may lead to adaptation which results in empathy or loss of emotional feeling. (Larzelere et al 2005). It is a form of defense mechanism where an individual isolate emotions from actions in order to avoid negative feel associated with it. This is a very important psychological development as it results in loss of conscious guilt, an emotion, present after a wrong deed. These emotions are very important to maintain self control over aggression. A study conducted between two groups of children with one group inflicted with corporal punishment and other with no such history. They were introduced to painful emotional stimulus such as crying babies. The latter group showed empathy and concern towards such stimuli; where as individuals with the history of corporal punishment did not response at all or with negative emotions such as anger and hatred. This is evidence that corporal punishment paved a pathway for an individual to anti-social behavior which became evident in later half of the life. In psychological literature Id, Ego and Superego are three important terms to describe human behavior. (Fadem 2005). Id is basically the inner instinct of a human being which he is born with. These instincts include aggression for food and thrive for sex, the basic necessities of life. These are animal instincts, violent and aggressive, not acceptable in our society. But how we still grow up as a social animal? The superego plays an important part here. It comprise of social boundaries and restrictions that we learn as we grow up. The two main institutions, parents and teachers, incorporating that social knowledge are the keys in child development. Let’s understand this now. Corporal punishment is associated with pain and emotional stimuli. Therefore, when a child is subjected to it they naturally tend to avoid the stimuli and also the source of stimuli which in this case, unfortunately, are parents and teachers. So this dissociation from the two main learning centers deprive a child from acquiring the basic social knowledge required to form their superego which is required to suppress their Id which are aggressive anti social instincts. So this is basically a vicious cycle which ultimately leads to incompatibility with the norms of human society and together with empathy or loss of emotional sense blend to raise an anti-social monster. During the phase of bond dissociation children are more vulnerable to acquire bad company. (Bandura 1977). The reason behind this hypothesis is rather simple and is fairly explained by social learning theory. As discussed earlier, children depend on their parents for protection and security but when the bond dissociates they develop sense of insecurity and look for a more ‘reliable’ support. Most of the time they may indulge in negative social attractions such as smoking or even drug abuse. Also to escape from parental punishment they learn to lie. This act might seem very small and minor in context to the serious topic under discussion. But it’s not about the severity of this act; the fact that an antisocial entity was learned in the process of avoiding the stimuli is of important concern. These small things roots and synthesize antisocial elements such as stealing etc. Much research has been done to identify a relationship between corporal punishment and its effects on later delinquency rates. The most significant among them is a Meta analysis (Gershoff 2002) which used three sources to identify all the articles discussing corporal punishment and its association with child behavior. About 300 abstracts and full articles were included the in study. 11 potential behaviors associated with corporal punishment in the literature were isolated for separate Meta analysis. In children, it comprised of immediate compliance, moral internalization, aggression, delinquent, anti-social behavior, quality of parent child relationship, mental health and likelihood of physical abuse victim. (Gershoff 2002). In adults, it consist of aggression, criminal/anti-social behavior, mental health and abuse of own child or spouse. The results of these 11 separate Meta analyses were astonishing. 10 out of 11 analyses suggested that children introduced to parental corporate punishment had unwanted negative behavior. There was considerable increase in aggression, delinquent and anti-social behavior among those children. Moreover, they were at high risk of being a victim of physical abuse. They also showed both decrease in quality of relationship with parents and moral internalization. Similar trends in adults were also evident as they also had increased criminal and anti social behavior. (Greshoff 2002). Hence, this research clearly supports my hypothesis and indicates inclination, of individuals subjected to corporal punishment, towards delinquency. We know that the primary aim of parents inflicting corporal punishment is to discontinue their child’s particular behavior. Research shows that most of the time they do succeed in achieving their main objective. This is termed as immediate compliance and is considered to an outcome fear and distress that is evoked in child by corporal punishment. Childs fear of losing their parents love and affection is the main driving force behind this achievement. But this is only a short term outcome and things become difficult and complicated as this layer of love slowly erodes in long run by constant punishment. One important thing which many fail to understand is that corporal punishment is never incorporated alone to modify behavior. It is more often accompanied by other means of discipline, for example, use of abusive language, threats and insults are usually backed up with corporal punishment. These entities can act as a catalyst and magnify the adverse outcomes of corporal punishment. The fact that Meta analysis showed an increase risk of children physically abused by their parents, if they use corporal punishment as a mean of discipline, further complicates the story. There is more probability that physical abuse induce anti-social behavior than corporate punishing. Therefore, corporate punishment both directly and indirectly increases the delinquency rates. This also thins out the line between corporate punishment and physical violence. Corporal punishment, if pushed too much or exceed from its limits, will fall under physical violence as both are part of two points along a continuum. (Greshoff 2002). To understand any association with delinquency, we need to understand the psychology of a criminal behavior. Self control theory (Miller 2009) emphasize that people with low self control are attracted to crime. It further elaborate that these people are self centered, uncompromising and impulsive. They are hungry for immediate gratification and want to achieve a goal with minimum efforts which is provided by criminal act. This loss of self control is a result of anger deep rooted in person’s unconscious mind which may be associated with unresolved childhood issues. It is explained in coercion model of antisocial behavior (Patterson 1982). The problem begins with irritable, explosive parents. The reason for their irrationality can be marital problems or other factors may contribute to their bizarre behavior. But these parents start scanning their children for negative behavior and sometime may induce corporate punishment on neutral actions. This promotes anger and frustration in children towards their parents as shown by the Meta analysis. This injustice and associated shame of punishment may evoke a violent or aggressive reaction. This Impulsive corporal punishment has very low compliance rate as discussed before. So when children retaliate instead of giving in parents most likely stop corporate punishment. This result in his anti-social behavior being negatively reinforced. (Patterson 1982). Hence this coercive child starts to counter attack all forms of restrictions and boundaries even those beneficial for him. He start making his own decisions, refuse to compromise and start using anger and aggression to pave his pathway of desire. These were all the attributes that attract anyone to commit crime and soon he fight back the very laws that hold the society together thus inclining to anti-social or criminal behavior. To further support my hypothesis I would like to give example of Adolf Hitler. A lot has been written about him and much of that literature dissects the root causes of his behavior. His pathological personality development has been mainly attributed to the shame he inoculated at the hand of his father. (Dorpat 2007). He was chronically abused by his father who used to beat him severely under the influence of alcohol. Many psychologists believe that his grandiosity was a defense mechanism acquired to cover up that feeling of shame. (Dorpat 2007). The emotional abuse resulted in empathy which further developed into anger and hatred. From all these evidences and research works highlighted in this paper we can conclude that Corporal Punishment prompt a child towards delinquency. There is great need to address this issue because corporal punishment is very common in our society. Parents should choose from the mildest possible disciplinary tactics in order to protect their children from developing any negative emotions responsible for anti-social behavior. References Dorpat, Theodore L. Crimes of Punishment: America's Culture of Violence. New York: Algora Pub, 2007. Internet resource. Saunders, Bernadette J, and Chris Goddard. Physical Punishment in Childhood: The Rights of the Child. Chichester, West Sussex, UK: Wiley-Blackwell, 2010. Print. Miller, J M. 21st Century Criminology: A Reference Handbook. London: SAGE, 2009. Print. Fadem, Barbara. Behavioral Science. Baltimore: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, 2005. Print. Gershoff, ET. "Corporal Punishment by Parents and Associated Child Behaviors and Experiences: a Meta-Analytic and Theoretical Review." Psychological Bulletin. 128.4 (2002): 539-79. Print. Bandura, Albert. Social Learning Theory. Englewood Cliffs, N.J: Prentice Hall, 1977. Print. Patterson, Gerald R. Coercive Family Process. Eugene, Or: Castalia Pub. Co, 1982. Print. Larzelere, Robert, and Brett Kuhn. "Comparing Child Outcomes of Physical Punishment and Alternative Disciplinary Tactics: a Meta-Analysis." Clinical Child and Family Psychology Review. 8.1 (2005): 1-37. Print. Straus, Murray A, and Denise A. Donnelly. Beating the Devil Out of Them: Corporal Punishment in American Families. New York: Lexington Books, 1994. Print. O'Donohue, William T, and Leonard Krasner. Theories of Behavior Therapy: Exploring Behavior Change. Washington, D.C: American Psychological Association, 1995. Print. Read More