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Running Head: Corporal Punishment: Which one is more effective?

Corporal Punishment/Spanking: Which one is more effective?

Rodney Anthony

Social Work 300-02

March 12, 2010

Ms. McArthur
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Abstract

This study examines which punishment is more effective: time-outs or spankings? The social problem of

children being spank sometimes leads child abuse and child neglect/poverty. When children misbehave

or act in defiant, inappropriate, or even dangerous ways, parents want to show that this behavior is

unacceptable and needs to change. Parents may erroneously think spanking seems like a direct and

effective way to do that, but it delivers other messages that we don't want to send: fear, violence,

distrust, low self-esteem, and danger. But others also feel that since they parents spanked them as a

child and they tuned out fine, what’s wrong with spanking their future children as a means of discipline.

This paper examines people personal views and feeling on which corporal punishment seems to

be more effective when disciplining children. Individuals voted on if they strongly disagree, disagree,

strongly agree, and agree or undecided: that putting children in time-out is more effective then spanking

them. Below is a list of tables and charts of the survey overview, gender and country of the respondents.

Personally, I feel that whatever the age of your child, it's important to be consistent when it comes

to discipline. If parents don't stick to the rules and consequences they set up, their kids aren't likely to

either. It's important to not spank, hit, or slap a child of any age.
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Appendix

a. Vote

b. Overview

c. Map

d. Gender

e. Age

f. Income

g. Education

H. Team

I. Country
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Table 1

Overview of Respondents

Responses Frequency Percent

Strongly Disagree 14 14%

Disagree 18 18%

Agree 29 29%

Strongly Agree 14 14%

Undecided 24 24%

Table 2

Country (United States respondents)

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Responses Frequency Percent

Strongly Disagree 19 19%

Disagree 24 24%

Strongly Agree 5 5%

Agree 24 24%

Undecided 27 27%

Table 3

Gender of Respondents

Responses Frequency Percent

Male Respondents

Strongly Disagree 7 7%

Disagree 20 20%
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Strongly Agree 3 3%

Agree 16 16%

Undecided 18 18%

Female Respondents

Strongly Disagree 3 3%

Disagree 3 3%

Strongly Agree 3 3%

Agree 19 19%

Undecided 8 8%

Overview of respondents

14%
24%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
18%
Strongly agree
Agree
Undecided
29% 14%

This pie chart above shows the overall synopsis of the survey. When asked, do you agree in

putting kids in time-out is more effective in discipline then spanking them? Fourteen percent strongly

disagree, eighteen percent disagreed, fourteen percent strongly agreed, twenty-nine percent agreed

and twenty-four percent was undecided. As we examine this chart more intensively we see that people
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evenly strongly disagree and strongly agree on, that putting kids in time-out is more efficient then

spanking them.

United States respondents

19%
27%
Strongly Disagree
Disagree
Strongly Agree
Agree
24%
Undecided

24%
5%

This pie chart above represents the United States respondents. It shows that nineteen

respondents strongly disagree, twenty four disagree, five percent strongly agree, twenty four percent

agree and twenty seven percent was undecided. People equally disagree and agree that putting your

child on time-out is more effective then spanking them. Comparing these last to pie chats it seems as if

people equally feel the same. This shows that there is no really discipline that seems to be better. They

all are equivalent to one another.

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Gender of respondents 1

25%

20%
20% 19%
18%
16% Strongly Disagree
15% Disagree
Strongly Agree
10% Agree
8%
7%
Undecided
5%
3% 3% 3% 3%

0%
Male Female

This bar graph represents the gender of the respondents. We can see that a total of ten

percent strongly disagree, twenty three percent disagree, six strongly agree, thirty five agree and twenty

six are undecided. When comparing both sexes we see that seven percent of males strongly disagree

while only three percent females strongly disagree, twenty percent males disagree while three percent

females disagree, both males and females equally strongly agree taking three percent, sixteen percent

males agree compared to nineteen percent of the females and last we see that eighteen percent of the

males are undecided compared to eight percent of females. This also illustrate that men feel spanking is

more effective than time-outs. Women are more proactive for time-outs.
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Summary/ Conclusion

This paper examines people personal views and feeling on which corporal punishment seems to

be more effective when disciplining children. Individuals voted on if they strongly disagree, disagree,

strongly agree, and agree or undecided: that putting children in time-out is more effective then spanking

them. Below is a list of tables and charts of the survey overview, gender and country of the respondents.

Personally, I feel that whatever the age of your child, it's important to be consistent when it comes

to discipline. If parents don't stick to the rules and consequences they set up, their kids aren't likely to

either. It's important to not spank, hit, or slap a child of any age.

In conclusion results are neck and neck; respondents feel that spanking no timeouts is more

effective than one another. I also discovered that men are more for spanking and women are more for

time-outs. Another study by Murray Straus, co-director of the Family Research Laboratory at the

University of New Hampshire, followed 800 children between the ages of five and nine and found that

kids who were spanked scored lower on tests that measured their ability to learn. Straus thinks the

reason is that parents who don't spank their children spend more time talking and reasoning with them.

"The less corporal punishment [parents] used, the more stimulation they provided to the child," he says.

Straus also believes that while spanking may get children to stop misbehaving in the short run, it makes

them more likely to act out later on. His 1997 study found that the more children were spanked, the

more likely they were to fight, steal, and engage in other antisocial behavior. (The Case Against

Spanking: How To Discipline Your Child Without Hitting, Irwin A. Hyman, 1997: Jossey-Bass.)
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