No matter where they live in the world, university students who were spanked as children are more likely to engage in criminal behavior, according to new research by Murray Straus, co-director of University of New Hampshire Family Research Lab. Even young adults whose parents were generally loving and helpful as they were growing up showed higher rates of criminal behavior.From here.
The purpose of spanking is to teach children to behave when they get older. But, it doesn't work.
"Straus took into account the influence of such factors as parental education, misbehavior as a child, loving and positive approach to correcting misbehavior, student gender, student age, and nation."
ReplyDeleteHow does Straus effectively control for "misbehavior as a child"? By asking the students themselves if they misbehaved? By asking their parents? Is either of these groups unbiased?
It's possible that he showed that spanking does not work. It is, however, a lot more likely that he showed that children who misbehave, and therefore get spanked more, are more likely to commit crimes when adults. Or, to re-phrase, that spanking does not ALWAYS work. Some people were pretty much destined to be criminals. Gee, stop the presses.
This is how sociology gets a bad name.