Relationship between Socioeconomic Status and Corporal Punishment - Essay Example

Running Head: SES AND CORPORAL PUNISHMENT Relationship between Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Corporal Punishment of the of the Institution] Relationship between Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Corporal Punishment Introduction In the long history of research on child well-being, few constructs have received greater attention than socioeconomic status (SES). Although social scientists do not fully agree on precisely what SES represents, and they have proposed multiple different mechanisms linking SES to child well-being, there is near universal agreement that higher SES children have access to more of the resources needed to support their positive development than do lower SES children. For young children, it is assumed that much of the influence of SES on development is mediated directly through what parents afford by way of financial and human capital. As children age, SES increasingly operates through the social capital afforded by parents and through neighborhood-community connections and resources. Despite significant support for such broad generalizations, many questions remain regarding relations among SES, parenting, and child growth. Literature Review Relationship between Socioeconomic Status (SES) and Corporal Punishment The expressions physical punishment and corporal punishment are employed here as synonyms to refer to an action by parents intended to cause the child physical hurting, but not injury, for purposes of correction or control of misconduct. The 1975 and 1985 National Family Violence Surveys discovered that about 95% of American parents use corporal punishment as just cleared. This is consistent with a large number of other studies (Straus, 1991) and with the faith that corporal punishment is used by parents with tots or young children. Public health advocates have described corporal punishment as "a form of interfamilial violence associated with short and long-term adverse mental health outcomes" (Stewart et al., 2000, p. 257). Corporal punishment in the United States presents a complex picture, with high but decreasing rates of general approval, and a population increasingly divided regarding its use (Straus & Mathur, 1994). The approval of corporal punishment in the United States decreased dramatically from 94% in 1978 to 68% in 1994 (Straus & Mathur, 1996). Whereas in 1978 there was almost universal approval in the United States for parents spanking children, regardless of demographic variables, by 1994 disagreements were evident, with greater approval noted among African Americans, Southerners, and those with fewer years of formal education (Straus & Mathur, 1996). Unfortunately, data concerning Latinos are limited. Frequently, Latinos are simply excluded from the sample or are miscoded as African American or White (Ortega, Guillean, & Najera, 1996). The actual use of corporal punishment in the United States is also decreasing (Dart & Gelles, 1992; Straus, 1994). Even so, corporal punishment is still used widely, and Giles-Sims, Straus, and Sugarman (1995) have reported that "almost all children in the United States are spanked by their parents at some point in their lives" (p. 170). For parents to give up corporal punishment, they need to establish an effective alternative system of instruction and discipline. Research supports the notion that three kinds of parenting behaviors constitute such a system: those that promote the parent-child relationship, those that reinforce positive behaviors, and those that decrease undesired behaviors (Howard, 1996). Parents who resort to frequent or severe corporal punishment are likely to rely too much on punitive techniques, without using the other methods. They may underutilize other ways to gain compliance: through building their relationship with their children, reinforcing positive behaviors, and decreasing undesired behaviors through means other than punishment (e.g., distracting the child). Male gender, lower socioeconomic status, comorbid analysis of ADHD, positive parental history of mental illness and rebellious behavior, more frequent use of corporal punishment, and lower parental scrutinizing would be connected with early onset conduct disorder, while late onset conduct disorder would be connected with ethnic minority status and affiliation with unexpected peers. (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) For years learning theorists have known that punishment, as a means of behavior control, is highly complex. In fact, the same punishing stimulus may accelerate or retard performance of the same behavior, depending upon whether it is given in such a way to produce responses that are compatible or in conflict with the behavior (Fowler & Miller, 1963). In other instances, punishment may serve virtually no purpose because its inhibiting effects tend to wear off (Skinner, 1938). Recently, its aggression-inducing effects began to be appreciated by those working in the animal laboratory; Ulrich (1966) and Azrin (2000) showed that experimentally induced pain can produce a violent aggressive attack in a wide variety of animal species, including rats, pigeons, and monkeys. Of course, the pain-induced aggression they observed was reflexive, and delinquent aggression is not. However, field studies with humans are starting to show that SPP might be a potent precursor to the development of habitual instrumental aggression. The Problem of Aversive Conditionability in Psychopathy It has been known for some time that adult psychopaths and delinquents condition poorly. Eysenck (2000) has argued that the psychopath is a neurotic extrovert whose poor conditionability is probably an innate personality trait. The psychopath's general impulsivity, insensitivity to others, lack of moral values, and failure to profit from past experience or respond favorably to psychotherapy are well known. Schachter and Latan (2000), Schlichter and Ratliff (1971), and Hare (1978) have all shown that the psychopath is particularly poor in learning pain-avoidance tasks, although he seems to learn with positive reinforcement as well as normals. Hare (2004) writes: "The picture of psychopathy that emerges, therefore, is of a disorder in which there is ready activation of psychophysiological defense mechanisms when aversive stimulation is threatened or anticipated." (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) Since we are relatively confident from our own findings that all recidivist male delinquents have been exposed to SPP, we immediately began to suspect that SPP might be the environmental precursor that causes this blunting of autonomic reactivity which apparently services to reduce the emotional impact of a situation. Unfortunately, this may result in a person who fails to profit from aversive experiences, producing a person who habitually engages in behavior for which he has previously been punished. Methodology The Search for a Theory of Delinquency Based on SPP In our first controlled attempt to investigate the prevalence of SPP among delinquents, we sampled nineteen juvenile court-referred girls and twenty-nine juvenile court-referred boys. We were surprised to find that all twenty-nine boys had been exposed to SPP, although only twelve of the nineteen girls had. Since we had no idea how prevalent SPP was in the general population, we constructed and administered a multiple-choiced questionnaire to 132 laundromat patrons, specifically asking them what kind of discipline they would use on an eight-year-old child who had seriously misbehaved. We found that 54 percent of the minority non-college subjects and 33 percent of the minority subjects with some college were willing to use a strap on their child. Only 15 percent of the white, non-college subjects and 11 percent of the white subjects with some college were willing to use the belt if they were parents of an eight-year-old child. The difference between the two groups was statistically significant. Apparently our uneducated black and Puerto Rican subjects were three times more willing to use a belt on their children than were uneducated white subjects, and the same ratio (3 to 1) held for our educated subjects. These data, showing a higher use of SPP by educated minority subjects than uneducated whites, strikingly parallel the puzzling delinquency statistics reported earlier by Wolfgang who found higher crime rates among higher SES non-whites than among lower SES whites. (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) Since we later realized that the question asked of the laundromat sample was too indirect, we feel that data obtained on a later group of subjects probably reflect the use of SPP by the general population better than the data obtained from the laundromat sample. However, we still feel that the relationship among SPP, race, and socio-economic level obtained from the laundromat sample is still valid. To obtain a better estimate of the use of the belt in a typical white middle-class community, we asked fifty members of the PTA of a medium-sized, industrial Connecticut town if they felt they had ever been pushed to the point where they had to use the strap on one of their children. Twenty-one of the fifty subjects (42 percent) admitted having used the strap at least once on their child, but twenty-nine of the subjects (58 percent) had not.3 We also found that significantly more of those who had used the strap on their children reported having at least one aggressive child than those who had not used the strap. In even a smaller sample, eleven inner-city high school service club students, the three subjects reporting that they had been suspended from school or had been arrested on at least one occasion, all had been raised on a belt, but none of the five subjects free of exposure to SPP had ever been suspended or arrested. We now feel confident in stating that any group of subjects who use a belt on their children will report having significantly more aggressive children than a comparable group of subjects who do not use SPP, even in small samples barely large enough to make statistical comparisons. Since our first study with juvenile delinquents was rather crude, the decision was made to gather additional data on severity-seven consecutive juvenile court referrals, including fifty-eight boys and nineteen girls. The sample included nineteen black and Puerto Rican males, and seven black and Puerto Rican females, thirty-nine white males, and twelve white females. The blacks and Puerto Ricans were grouped together because of their minority group status. As a group the sample exhibited the same discouraging characteristics so commonly found in other groups of delinquent children. Approximately 60 percent had at least one alcoholic parent. 84 percent were reading below expected grade level, and 34 percent were representative of a minority group. On the other hand, nine of the fifty-eight males had parents classified as professional-managerial, including five of the most aggressive subjects in the delinquent sample. Rather surprisingly, fifty-six out of the fifty-eight male subjects were found to have been raised on a belt, board, extension cord, fist, or the equivalent, with only two exceptions representing only 3 percent of the sample. The two non-SPP youngsters, moreover, were inappropriate referrals and could not readily be considered delinquents. (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) Two independent judges were asked to classify the subjects according to severity of parental punishment. Severe was defined as the parental use of the belt to the rear, the belt having been terminated prior to referral; very severe punishment was defined as the continuing use of the belt, or anything more severe than a belt to the rear, including frequent beatings, the use of extension cords, boards, fists, or the equivalent. The SPP data was obtained by simply asking the subjects to specify what their parents normally did when they misbehaved. When the subject failed to mention anything more severe than a hand, the subject was asked if he had ever been struck with a belt. If the answer was positive, the subject was asked to explain the circumstances under which it was used, and was also asked to recall at what age his parents stopped using SPP. If the subject claimed that he had never been hit with anything other than a hand, he was pressed no further. The relationship between aggressive level and severity of corporal punishment in male delinquents was highly significant, and SPP was found to be related to delinquent aggression, as we had defined it for the purposes of this study. On the other hand, the same relationship was not significant within the sample of delinquent girls, although the trend was in the expected direction. Perhaps there are common correlates to SPP and aggression yet undiscovered, but at present it is difficult for us to believe that a parent can have a delinquent male child if SPP was not used on that child during the developmental years. Since delinquency appears to follow a developmental pattern, we were curious to find the age at which SPP terminates. Within our sample of fifty-eight boys, thirty-eight subjects were no longer receiving SPP, two subjects were never exposed to SPP, and eighteen subjects were still receiving SPP. Coincidentally, SPP appears to terminate4 at precisely the same time the delinquent is building up aggressive steam. Violent crime appears to reach its peak at fifteen and trails off thereafter (West, 1978). We also found that fewer girls received SPP than did the boys, but girls tend to be hit longer when they are exposed to SPP. What Corporal Punishment Probably Does to a Person's Ability to Cope with Stress Although many of our colleagues are not so convinced as we are of the detrimental effects and ubiquitousness of severe parenting in our society, our work with delinquents has convinced us that corporal punishment, and to a lesser extent other types of parental punishment, exerts a profound effect on the young child's ability to cope later on in life. Although we admit that a link has yet to be established between the poor conditionability of delinquents on pain-avoidance tasks, Hare's work (2004) suggests that the psychopath seems to be unusually adept in modulating aversive cues, which, in turn, reduces the emotional impact of a situation. Lykken (1967) has also noticed this, calling it "negative perception." It would appear then that the delinquent's inability to respond normally to threats of punishment may be an adaptive response to a punitive environment. One has to eat and sleep, and if home is likely to be miserable, one learns to ignore the misery. Unfortunately, this seems to produce a human being unable to profit from punishment, and unable to avoid it. (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) In most cases of delinquency, the following scenario appears to unfold. As the child gets bigger, more menacing, and is able to grab the belt out of the parent's hand, the corporal punishment ends, and the child has dramatically been reinforced for aggressive behavior. With the lid off the pressure cooker, the anger pours out. At this point, total alienation can occur between parent and child with a youngster growing into adulthood full of angry frustration that his parents never understood, and parents who want nothing to do with him for having spoiled their lives. Everyone expects the child to fail, including himself, so he does. The school situation parallels the home. The child shows his defiance, and the school retaliates. Often, when the child arrives home, the parents retaliate, too. It is probably less than coincidental that those who have studied high school dropouts find that most of them are budding delinquents (see Liehter et al., 1962). Conclusion If we are correct that the single most important factor in the development of delinquency is severe parenting, then the direction is clear. In recent years the social cost of crime has become enormous, costing business alone more than 23.6 billion dollars per year and homicide claims 20,000 people annually. The vandalism rate in our schools is estimated at 500 million dollars a year, and crime continues unabated. If a dent could be made in these statistics by teaching our society less punitive parenting, a strong effort in this direction should probably be made. Unfortunately, recent societal attitudes are not in keeping with this philosophy. People are scared; they are clamoring for a return to corporal punishment in the schools, tougher laws, and a return to capital punishment. We find this trend very alarming, and one that can only exacerbate the delinquency problem, with the juvenile delinquent becoming the one with the most to lose. Assuming the belt theory is essentially valid, a community assault on the problem is needed. The following recommendations are suggested: 1. The negative effects of corporal punishment must be well exposed, and recognized by the public at large as well as the clinical community, resulting in a social atmosphere condemning it. 2. Schools need to be well staffed with family therapists who can enter the home when a child has been found to be unusually aggressive, or has shown other evidence of parental maltreatment. The dangers of severe parenting must be pointed out, and other alternatives to discipline provided. Other family stresses could then be identified and reduced. The schools are in a unique position to provide this service, since they see, practically every day, the consequences of bad parenting. 3. The aggressive-hyperactive child should not be medicated and then forgotten if his behavior improves. If SPP continues, puberty could very well bring the anger to the surface again. 4. Schools that still practice corporal punishment and other punitive practices must be required to stop these destructive procedures immediately, the 1975 and 1977 Supreme Court rulings allowing corporal punishment in the schools notwithstanding. A school cannot provide supportive services if the school itself is also an aggressor. 5. Training for parenthood should be government-mandated and should begin in the early grades. The use of corporal punishment should he repeatedly and resoundingly condemned in these programs, with appropriate alternatives to discipline being provided. Of course, this does result in a dilemma. The U.S. government has traditionally avoided becoming involved in local education, and the general public appears to be oblivious to the insidious long-term effects of corporal punishment exemplified by the growing "back to basics" movement, pressing for the old-fashioned discipline. In the present climate, local school boards are likely to be slow in implementing such programs, unfortunately. 6. Police need to be better trained in handling and understanding delinquent misconduct. Many a policeman has told a parent of a delinquent, "What your kid needs is a good whack on the ass!" Frequently, the youngster has a parent who is at his or her wits' end, and open to any and all suggestions. The policeman who tells the parent to go easier on the kid, rather than harder, to do a bit more patient listening, and less issuing of commands, would be doing everyone a service. 7. Battered wives, and to a lesser extent battered husbands, need assistance. The fact that a group of battered wives recently banded together in New York because of the cavalier way the criminal justice system had treated them exemplifies a serious problem that exists in every American community. It is clear that every time an angry parent strikes another, their children's aggressive thresholds drop a little more. 8. Family therapists need to teach parents of delinquents to express hurt rather than anger when their child misbehaves. If the child is to learn guilt, and to love the parent, he must not be treated in such a way that alienation is guaranteed. 9. All poor, minority, and other high-risk SPP groups in our society urgently need to be apprised of the risks involved in severe parenting. Ethnic leaders should be enlisted to lead the educational campaign. (www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm) References Azrin, N. H, 2000. Aggression. Paper read at the American Psychologyogical Association convention, Los Angeles. Dart, D., & Gelles, R. J. (1992). Public attitudes and behaviors with respect to child abuse prevention. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 7, 517-531. Fowler, H. & Miller, N. E. 1963, Facilitation and inhibition of runway performance by hind-and-forepaw shock of various intensities. J. of Comparative and Physiological Psychology., 56, 801- 805. Giles-Sims, J., Straus, M. A., & Sugarman, D. B. (1995). Child, maternal and family characteristics associated with spanking. Family Relations, 44, 170-176. Hare, R. D. 2004, Anxiety, stress, and psychopathy. Paper presented at the conference on dimensions of stress. Symposium on the physiological aspects of stress and anxiety, Athens, Greece, September. Hare, R. D. Psychopathy, 1978, autonomic functions, and the orienting response. J. Abnormal Psychology. Monogr. Supp., vol. 73, no. 3, part 2, 1-24. Howard, B.J. (1996). Advising parents on discipline: What works. Pediatrics, 98, 809-814. Liehter, S. O., Rapien, E. B., Seibert, F. M. & Sklinsky, M. D. 1962, The drop-outs. New York: The Free Press, 144-147. Lykken, D. T. 1967, Valin's emotionality and autonomic reactivity: An appraisal. J. Experimental Res. in Personality, 2, 49-55. Ortega, R. M., Guillean, C., & Najera, L. G. (1996). Latinos y el bienestar del nio: Voces de la comunidad. [Latinos and child welfare: Community voices] Schachter, S. & Latan, B. 2000, Crime, cognition, and the autonomic nervous system. In Levine, D. (ed.), Nebraska symposium on motivation. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 221-273. Schlichter, K. J. & Ratliff, R. G. 1971, Discrimination learning in juvenile delinquents. J. Abnormal. Soc. Psychology., 77, 46-48. Skinner, B. F, 1938. The behavior of organisms. New York: Appleton. Stewart, C. L., Lara, M. G., Amighetti, L. D. H., Wissow, L. S., Guitierrez, M. I., Levav, I., & Maddaleno, M. (2000). Parenting and physical punishment: Primary care interventions in Latin America. Pan American Journal of Public Health, 8, 257-267. Straus, M. A. (1991). Discipline and deviance: Physical punishment of children and violence and other crimes in adulthood. Social Problems, 38, 101-123 Straus, M. A. (1994). Beating the devil out of them. New York: Lexington. Straus, M. A., & Mathur, A. K. (1994). Corporal punishment by parents and later occupational and economic achievement of children. Durham, NH: Family Research Laboratory. Straus, M. A., & Mathur, A. K. (1996). Social change and the trends in approval of corporal punishment by parents from 1978-1994. In D. Frehsee, W. Horn, & K. D. Bussmann (Eds.), Family violence against children: A challenge for society (pp. 91-105). New York: Walter de Gruyter. Ulrich, R. 1966, Pain as a cause of aggression. Am. Zoologist, 6, 643-662. West, D. J, 1978. The young offender. Baltimore: Penguin Books. Retrieved on May 9, 2006 from www.nospank.net/welsh3.htm Read More