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C H A P T E R E L E V E N On Discipline* P ARENTAL DISCIPLINE CONSTITUTES one of the more salient and, perhaps, malleable features of child-rearing. Knowing how to bring about desired results in children’s behavior is likely, therefore, to be particularly valuable. Yet research designed to understand effects of variations in timing, techniques, or context of discipline has been surprisingly rare. For this reason alone, the research reported by Deater-Deckard and Dodge in their target article is welcome. Deater-Deckard and Dodge suggest that physical discipline affects children’s aggression, with the magnitude of the influence depending on “the severity of the discipline, the cultural group in which the discipline occurs (and meaning that it conveys), the parent-child relationship context in which discipline occurs, and the gender of the parent and child.” Specifically, they suggest that “when physical discipline is administered in the context of a cold parent-child relationship . . . its effects will be magnified.” Deater-Deckard and Dodge report shortterm results confirming their hypotheses regarding effects of corporal punishment on aggressive behavior. In the pages that follow, I evaluate these hypotheses from the perspective of a 30-year follow-up study. Method Data for analysis of the long-term impact of corporal punishment come from the Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study. The Youth Study was designed for the dual purposes of preventing delinquency and measuring development of boys who lived in impoverished, crowded urban environments. Referrals to the program included Boy Scouts as well as school truants so that participation would not stigmatize the boys. *Reprinted from McCord, J. 1997. On discipline. Psychological Inquiry 8 (3): 215–217; with permission from Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc. O N D I S C I P L I N E 139 The program involved a matched-pair design with one member of each pair randomly assigned to treatment. As part of the information gathered in order to match pairs of boys, teachers were asked to describe the behavior of boys in their classes. The boys were between the ages of 4 and 9 at the time these ratings were made. Treatment began in 1939, when the boys averaged 10.5 years in age. It lasted for approximately 5.5 years. As part of the treatment program, case workers visited the homes of the clients, reporting what they saw and heard after each visit. The case records were coded in 1957. The attitude of a parent toward the boy was classified as warm (affectionate) if that parent interacted frequently with the child, without being generally critical . Alternative classifications were: passively affectionate (if the parent was concerned for the boy’s welfare, but there was little interaction), passively rejecting (if the parent was unconcerned for the boy’s welfare and interacted little), actively rejecting (if the parent was almost constantly critical of the boy), ambivalent (if the parent showed marked alternation between affection and rejection of the child), and no indication. Two raters reading a 10 percent random sample of the cases agreed on 84 percent of the ratings for mothers and for fathers regarding parental attitudes toward their sons. Discipline by each parent was classified as corporal punishment (punitive) if the parent used very harsh verbal abuse or physical force to control the boy. Alternative ratings were nonpunitive (used praise, rewards, or reasoning), extremely lax (almost no use of discipline), and no information. Two raters reading a 10 percent random sample of the cases agreed on 96 percent of the ratings for discipline by mothers and 76 percent by fathers. To discern whether corporal punishment as measured through the case records should be considered a response to prior misbehavior, teachers’ ratings were used to identify the particularly troublesome children, children whose teachers described them as fighters, truants, blaming others for their own misbehavior, and so forth (see McCord, 1994). Neither the mothers’ nor the fathers’ use of corporal punishment was reliably related to prior general misbehavior. Data regarding the mother’s affection and discipline were available for 224 of 232 families. The data were available for 173 of the fathers. Not surprisingly, lack of maternal warmth and use of corporal punishment were related. Whereas only 35 percent of the 108 punitive mothers were warm, 60 percent of the 116 nonpunitive mothers were warm, χ2 (1)=14.18, p=.000. Similarly, lack of paternal warmth and corporal punishment were related. Whereas only 22 percent of the 102 punitive fathers...

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