American parents hold conflicting beliefs about spanking, viewing it both as a form of hitting and as less severe than hitting. This study was published in the journal Psychology of Violence.
Elizabeth T. Gershoff and colleagues examined American parents’ beliefs about spanking, a form of physical punishment legal across all U.S. states, but opposed by major health organizations for its documented harms to children. Despite growing evidence against its effectiveness, spanking is a common disciplinary method.
Motivated by the legal and cultural contradictions surrounding physical punishment, the researchers examined how parents reconcile their use of spanking with broader societal norms rejecting violence against adults and pets.
The study recruited 286 U.S. parents of children aged 0-8 years through Prolific. The final sample was predominantly White (85%), married (83%), and middle-income, with an average age of 33 years.
Participants were asked to provide their definitions of spanking in an open-ended format, generate synonyms, and rate the severity of spanking compared to other terms like “hitting,” “smacking,” and “slapping.” They also evaluated the acceptability of hitting within families, including scenarios involving children, spouses, elderly parents, and pets, and provided justifications for their responses. Parents also reflected on whether the survey influenced their views on spanking and explained why if their beliefs had changed.
A significant majority (90%) agreed with a definition of spanking that included the term “hitting,” yet many viewed spanking as less severe than hitting. When prompted to define spanking, about one-third of participants explicitly used words like “hitting” or “striking,” while others referenced milder terms like “smacking” or “swatting.”
Parents also demonstrated a clear hierarchy of perceived severity among physical punishment terms, with some forms (e.g., “beating”) seen as significantly more severe than spanking, while others (e.g., “tapping” or “swatting”) were deemed less severe.
In evaluating the acceptability of hitting within families, parents were more likely to find hitting children (30%) acceptable compared to hitting pets (17%), spouses (1%), or elderly parents (0%). Parents’ open-ended responses often justified spanking as a necessary disciplinary measure, particularly when other methods failed, or as a means to ensure children’s safety in specific situations.
Interestingly, nearly one-third of parents reported that completing the survey prompted them to reconsider their views on spanking. Many highlighted the comparison between hitting children and other forms of family violence as a catalyst for this change, with some expressing regret about past instances of spanking.
Of note is that the study’s cross-sectional design precludes causal conclusions.
The research, “Spare the Dog, Hit the Child: Preliminary Findings Regarding Parents’ Beliefs About Spanking and Hitting Children,” was authored by Elizabeth T. Gershoff, Shawna J. Lee, Joyce Y. Lee, Olivia D. Chang, and Catherine A. Taylor.
