Psychology paper

REFLEXTION PAPER (DUE BY FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 8, AT 8:00 PM)

Reflection papers must be typed, double-spaced throughout, 1-inch margin on all sides, 12 font size, and Times New Roman font type. 

References in APA format (2-3 references would be enough)

Three-page minimum (excluding title page and reference page) 

Please read this article and answer these questions:

(1) What was the purpose of this article?

(2) What did the author say about the relationship between physical discipline (e.g., spanking) and behavioral problems?

(3) What did the author criticize about previous studies done on spanking and behavioral problems?

(4) What did the author suggest as an alternative explanation for interpreting the data on spanking and behavioral problems?

(5) Is there a difference between socioeconomic status and spanking between European Americans and African Americans? What are the implications?

(6) Do you agree with the author’s assertions? Be specific about what you agree and/or disagree with.

F E A T U R E

Sociocultural Differences in the
Developmental Consequences of the Use of
Physical Discipline During Childhood for
African Americans

ARTHUR L. WHALEY
New York State Psychiatric Institute

Given the diverse cultures that can shape parenting behavior, some basic assumptions
regarding the links between parenting styles and developmental outcomes may not be

universal. Although a positive correlation between the use of physical discipline (i.e.,

spanking) and disruptive disorders in children is found in studies of European Ameri-
can families, research on African American families has found a negative association

or none at all. Moreover, a review of the literature indicates that the positive associa-
tion between spanking and child behavior problems is bidirectional for White families,
whereas it is the product of reverse causation (i.e., negative child behaviors result in

spanking) in Black families. The implications of these sociocultural differences for par-
ent training programs and the family study of disruptive behaviors are discussed.

‘ African American * discipline * disruptive disorders * parenting * family studies

Contemporary theories and research sug- broader community instead of vice versa
gest that the broader sociocultural context (Kelley, Sanchez-Hucles, & Walker, 1993;
may play a more important role than par- Mason, Cauce, Gonzales, & Hiraga, 1996).
enting behaviors or family characteristics in Given the diverse cultures that can shape
developmental outcomes (e.g., Brooks- parenting behavior, some basic assumptions
Gunn, Duncan, Klebanov, & Sealand, 1993; regarding the links between parenting styles
Gorman-Smith & Tolan, 1998; Harris, 1995; and child development may not be univer-
Ogbu, 1981). Moreover, several studies pro- sal. Consequently, the cross-cultural validity
vide empirical support for the notion that of research based on these assumptions is
parenting practices are shaped by the called into question.

Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Arthur L. Whaley, Department
of Social Psychiatry, New York State Psychiatric Institute, 1051 Riverside Drive, Unit 8, New

York, New York 10032. Electronic mail may be sent to alw2@columbia.edu.

Cultural Diversity and Ethnic Minority Psychology Copyright 2000 by the Educational Publishing Foundation
Vol. 6, No. 1, 5-12 1099-9809/00/$5.00 DOI: 10.1037//1099-9809.6.1.5

W H A I, E Y

One such assumption is the belief that
the use of physical discipline (i.e., spanking)
leads to the development of conduct disor-
ders or disruptive behaviors in children. The
purpose of this article is to review the evi-
dence suggesting sociocultural differences
in developmental outcomes from the use of
spanking by African American parents in
contrast to their European American coun-
terparts. (Use of the term physical discipline
in this article always refers to spanking.) In
addition, the implications of these sociocul-
tural differences for parent training pro-
grams and the family study of disruptive be-
haviors are discussed. Specifically, the
consequences of ethnocentric biases in gen-
eralizing from White samples to African
Americans are explicated, and suggestions
are offered as to how to make such research
and training culturally sensitive.

Physical Punishment and
Disruptive behavior

The positive association between aversive
parenting and disruptive disorders in chil-
dren is a well-established empirical finding.
Cohen and Brook (1987) reported a positive
relationship between “power assertive pun-
ishment” and behavior problems in a
sample of 725 children in an 8-year longitu-
dinal study of two upstate New York coun-
ties. Similarly, Vuchinich, Bank, and Patter-
son (1992) found a positive association
between aversive parenting and antisocial
behavior in a 2-year longitudinal study of
206 preadolescent boys. Both of these longi-
tudinal investigations also revealed a recip-
rocal relationship between negative parent-
ing and behavioral disorders, suggesting a
mutually reinforcing cycle of negative inter-
actions between parent and child. A cross-
sectional study of 1,285 youths and their par-
ents by Goodman et al. (1998) also found a
positive correlation between physical pun-
ishment and disruptive disorders.

The above studies on parenting style and
child behavior problems have several limita-

tions. First, they tend to include several dif-
ferent parenting behaviors in their measure
of aversive parenting. Thus it is unclear
whether spanking per se is responsible for
the negative behavioral outcomes in chil-
dren. Second, this style of parenting has
been referred to as power assertive punishment
(Cohen & Brook, 1987) and authoritarian
(Baumrind, 1972), suggesting that parents
who use spanking as a disciplinary tech-
nique have little or no regard for the child:
Their main concern is obedience to author-
ity. Finally, this research and the conclusions
drawn from it come from studies of com-
pletely or predominantly European Ameri-
can samples. Thus it can be argued that an
ethnocentric bias is operating in the design,
conduct, and interpretation of research on
the association between parenting and dis-
ruptive disorders in children.

For example, physical discipline can be
either parent oriented or child oriented. A
child-oriented view assumes that children
need to learn obedience to become self-
respecting and responsible adults, whereas a
parent-oriented perspective considers obe-
dience to parental authority an end in it-
self (see Kelley, Power, & Wimbush, 1992).
Kelley et al. (1992) found physical punish-
ment to be correlated with both parent-
oriented and child-oriented disciplinary
styles in a group of low-income Black moth-
ers. This finding is at odds with the notion,
derived from the study of White families,
that use of physical discipline always reflects
a parent-centered style (Kelley et al., 1992,
1993). Further evidence of the cultural un-
derpinnings of the use of physical disci-
pline comes from studies of within-group
variation among Black families. Heffer and
Kelley (1987) examined race and income
differences in 83 mothers’ views of the ac-
ceptability, as measured by the Treatment
Evaluation Inventory, of positive reinforce-
ment, response cost, spanking, and medica-
tion as child behavior management strate-
gies. They found that physical punishment
was acceptable to 64% of low-income and
67% of middle-income Black mothers,
whereas 60% of low-income White mothers

C U L T U R E A N D T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F S P A N K I N G 7

endorsed it in contrast to 25% of their
middle-income counterparts (Heffer & Kelley,
1987). These findings suggest that, unlike Eu-
ropean Americans, physical punishment is not
simply a social class phenomenon for African
Americans. These studies, taken together, in-
dicate that spanking may represent different
motivations and meanings for Black and
White parents.

There are a few studies that examine eth-
nic/racial differences in the developmental
consequences of physical punishment. One
of the earliest studies was conducted by
Baumrind (1972), who found that, unlike
with her White subsample, an authoritarian
parenting style was not associated with nega-
tive behavioral outcomes for Black pre-
school children. Deater-Deckard, Dodge,
Bates, and Pettit (1986) followed a sample of
466 European American and 100 African
American children of various socioeco-
nomic backgrounds from kindergarten
through third grade. Maternal use of physi-
cal discipline was assessed by interviews and
questionnaires. Children’s externalizing be-
haviors were rated annually by mothers,
teachers, and peers. Teacher and peer rat-
ings of externalizing behavior problems
were positively associated with mothers’ use
of physical discipline for European Ameri-
can mothers but not for African American
mothers.

Another study by McLeod, Kruttschnitt,
and Dornfeld (1994) used data from the
Children of the National Longitudinal Sur-
vey of Youth to compare 536 Black families
and 1,330 White families in terms of the link
between parenting and antisocial behavior.
Using the 1986 and 1988 data on spanking,
McLeod et al. (1994) demonstrated reverse
causation between spanking and antisocial
behavior for Black mothers, that is, chil-
dren’s antisocial behavior led to them being
spanked. The relationship between White
mothers’ use of spanking and children’s an-
tisocial behavior was reciprocal or bidirec-
tional. McLeod et al.’s findings of a recipro-
cal relationship between spanking and
behavioral disorders in children for the
White subsample were consistent with other

studies that used broader measures of aver-
sive parenting (Cohen & Brook, 1987;
Goodman et al., 1998; Vuchinich et al.,
1992). These studies, in conjunction, sug-
gest that mothers’ use of physical discipline
is a risk factor for disruptive behaviors for
European American families but not for Af-
rican American families.

In fact, in some instances, physical pun-
ishment may be a protective factor against
the development of child behavior problems
in African American families. The results
of a longitudinal study of 112 inner-city
boys, 6-10 years of age, by Wasserman,
Miller, Pinner, and Jaramillo (1996) are
consistent with this argument. Wasserman et
al. found that, after controlling for baseline
behavior problems, parental reports of
punishment on the Pittsburgh Youth Study
Survey were negatively correlated, and child
reports on the same instrument were not
correlated at all, with measures of external-
izing behavior 15 months later. In contrast,
they reported that fighting, as measured by
an adapted version of the Conflict Tactics
Scales, between parents and children was a
positive predictor of externalizing behav-
iors. Ethnocentric bias is evident in Wasser-
man et al.’s perspective by their categoriza-
tion of physical punishment, along with
more severe behaviors like fighting, as a
form of parent—child conflict. Because of
the unexpected findings, Wasserman et al.
acknowledged that punishment and fighting
are different constructs, but they did not
consider the possibility that the results may
have been because their sample is 54% Af-
rican American and 44% Latino.

The results of Wasserman et al. (1996)
are the most compelling evidence of the
lack of cross-cultural validity of the positive
association between physical discipline and
disruptive disorders in children. Overall, the
pattern of results from the various studies of
African American families appears on the
surface to be inconsistent. Wasserman et al.
reported a negative association between
physical punishment and disruptive disor-
ders, Baumrind (1972) and Deater-Deckard
et al. (1986) reported no association, and

W H A L E Y

McLeod et al. (1994) reported a positive as-
sociation with reverse causation. These vari-
ous studies have a number of methodologi-
cal differences that may be responsible for
the differential outcomes. The most impor-
tant point, however, is that these studies
have in common the fact that none of them
support the hypothesis that parents’ use of
spanking causes disruptive disorders as a de-
velopmental outcome in African American
children. The situation is analogous to the
difference between one-tailed and two-tailed
statistical tests. Allowance for cross-cultural
differences in the association would be
equivalent to a two-tailed test. On the other
hand, ethnocentric bias in interpretations of
the positive association found for European
American families is tantamount to a one-
tailed test, so both null results and negative
associations found in studies of African
Americans are treated uniformly in hypoth-
esis testing.

The meaning of physical punishment in
Black communities includes concerns about
survival (see Baumrind, 1972; Belsky, 1993;
Kelley et al., 1992; Mason et al., 1996).
These concerns derive from both historical
and contemporary experiences with oppres-
sive societal conditions. African American
children tend to grow up in communities
suffering economic, political, and social dis-
advantages, and they must therefore cope
with more environmental adversities. “In
contrast to middle-class mothers, who can
afford to be more tolerant of mild levels of
disobedience, the consequences of disobe-
dience in a low-income environment may be
much more serious and may require more
forceful methods to prevent any level of in-
volvement” (Kelley et al., 1992, p. 574).
Spanking may have originally functioned as
a means of teaching children to respect
power and authority to protect them from
greater harm by violating social rules. Some
researchers have traced this perspective
back to slavery (see review by Belsky, 1993).
Although the consequences are often not as
severe as during the era of slavery, contem-
porary experiences with legal authorities re-

flect the same concerns. A common saying
in the Black community is “I’d rather my
child get a beating from me than from the
police.” Belsky (1993) aptly pointed out that
the Rodney King beating was evidence in
support of the assertion that violation of so-
cietal rules has graver consequences for Af-
rican Americans. From an African American
cultural perspective, the goal of spanking
may be to use strong external controls to
help children develop better self-control
rather than external control being an end
in itself. In this way, use of physical disci-
pline can be construed as a child-oriented
parenting technique when used by some
Black parents.

Implications

Parent Training

Successful behavior change from parent
training will be limited without considering
the parents’ cultural background (Forehand
& Kotchick, 1996). The functional signifi-
cance of spanking in African American fami-
lies needs to be assessed as a part of any
intervention targeting their parenting skills.
It should be determined whether a given
parent uses spanking as a parent-oriented
versus a child-oriented approach. These two
approaches would require different ration-
ales for encouraging a parent to use alterna-
tive strategies. Interventions for parent-
o r i e n t e d p u n i s h m e n t w o u l d e n t a i l
challenges to the attitudes underlying the
behavior, whereas child-oriented physical
discipline can be replaced with equally ef-
fective alternative methods of teaching chil-
dren consequences for inappropriate behav-
ior. Moreover, the alternative should be
viable to the African American parent. Re-
search suggests that response cost, which in-
volves reprimands and taking away privi-
leges, is an a c c e p t a b l e a l t e r n a t i v e to
spanking for Black parents (see Heffer &
Kelley, 1987; Kelley et al., 1993). These ad-

C U L T U R E A N D T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F S P A N K I N G

aptations may make parent training pro-
grams more culturally sensitive.

The importance of a cultural analysis of
physical discipline was illustrated by the re-
sults from a parent training program for
inner-city African-American families re-
ported by Myers et al. (1992), who designed
a parent training program that was ostensi-
bly sensitive to African American culture.
The cultural elements included the use of
Black professionals, discussions of ethnic/
racial pride, and strategies for helping chil-
dren cope with racism. The program re-
sulted in significant improvements on a
number of parental, family, and child behav-
ior outcomes, many of which were main-
tained 1 year later. However, at 1-year follow-
up, Myers et al. (1992) noted “a disturbing
tendency for treatment parents to regress to
the use of earlier and more coercive parent-
ing practices” (p. 145). An assessment of the
motivation and meaning underlying the use
of spanking and other “coercive” parenting
practices may prevent such tendencies on
the part of African American parents. An
important lesson from Myers et al.’s inter-
vention program is that cultural sensitivity
requires that the behavior management
strategies themselves be evaluated.

Family Studies of Disruptive Disorders

Psychological and biological studies of dis-
ruptive disorders in children implicate aver-
sive parenting practices as a major cause
(e.g., Cohen & Brook, 1987; Pine et al.,
1996; Wasserman et al., 1996). These studies
do not take into account cross-cultural varia-
tion in the relationship between parenting
behaviors and child behavior problems. One
consequence of this ethnocentric bias is that
researchers inappropriately generalize from
studies of predominantly White samples to
minority samples from inner-city communi-
ties. This methodological error is particu-
larly problematic in biological studies. For
example, Pine et al. (1997) tested the hy-
pothesis that serotonin deficits were associ-
ated with antisocial behaviors in Black and

Latino children. It is important to note that
they used the same sample as Wasserman et
al. (1996). Consistent with their hypothesis,
Pine et al. also found that parenting behav-
iors were associated with low serotonergic
activity. From a sociocultural perspective, it
could be argued that both aversive parent-
ing styles and disruptive behavior are the re-
sult of a third variable, such as exposure to
community violence.

Exposure to community violence has
been found to be correlated with aggressive
behaviors in urban youths (Gorman-Smith
& Tolan, 1998). Moreover, Gorman-Smith
and Tolan found no significant mediational
or moderator effect for parenting practices
in the association between exposure to com-
m u n i t y violence and youth aggression.
These findings are consistent with Harris’s
(1995) and Ogbu’s (1981) theories of child
development, which posit a more significant
role for the extrafamilial environment. It is
also possible that parents become more con-
trolling and aversive in response to concerns
about violence and other dangers in their
children’s environment (cf. Kelley et al.,
1993; Mason et al., 1996). Although both
the parenting style and child behavior prob-
lems may be the result of community vio-
lence, an ethnocentric perspective would
lead to the misattribution of adverse devel-
opmental outcomes to the family because
environmental adversity, in this case expo-
sure to community violence, is treated as
constant.

Family studies that ignore sociocultural
and environmental differences in communi-
ties can lead to blame-the-victim types of
conclusions. Schwartz (1998) pointed out,
for example, that research on the biological
bases of aggression and violence in African
American and Latino children from inner-
city communities limits the variability of al-
most all social factors (i.e., neighborhood
poverty, racism, etc.) related to juvenile de-
linquency by holding them constant, leaving
only the variance owing to individual differ-
ences to be explained. These types of de-
signs would leave consumers of research

10 W H A 1, F. Y

with the impression that all disruptive be-
haviors in children have exclusively biologi-
cal etiology. Although these concerns are
not new, they need to be articulated given
the resurgence of biological research and
the advances in biogenetic technology.

The treatment of noxious (extrafamilial)
social environments as a constant in family
studies of disruptive disorders in ethnic and
racial minority communities reflects the cul-
tural values of researchers (Schwartz, 1998).
The implication of this type of research de-
sign is that high-risk environments are
“natural” for Blacks and other ethnic/racial
minority children. In other words, the cul-
tural ecology of a community is construed as
a source of within-group variation but not
between-groups variation. This assumption
is challenged by research indicating that
Black and White families are similarly af-
fected by environmental adversity (McLeod
et al., 1994; Sampson, 1987). Therefore,
generalizations from family studies of White
middle-class families living in low-risk envi-
ronments to Black families living in high-risk
environments without considering between-
groups differences in ecological context
constitute a racist perspective, albeit a subtle
form. The implicit assumption is that the
overwhelming racial disparities in almost ev-
ery indicator of health and well-being play
no role in the dysfunctional or maladaptive
family and developmental outcomes. A fo-
cus on differences at the individual or family
level would then serve to legitimize the so-
cial conditions by promoting deficit models
of parenting and child development. Racism
in scientific research must be acknowledged
and confronted, if scientific inquiry is to
have humanity and integrity. For a research
design to be more culturally sensitive, it
must address between-groups differences at
the ecological level in addition to the indi-
vidual and family levels.

Concluding Remarks

The positive correlation between the use of
physical discipline and disruptive disorders

in children found in research on European
American families does not appear to be
generalizable to African American families
(Deater-Decker et al., 1986; McLeod et al.,
1994; Wasserman et al., 1996). Black par-
ents’ use of spanking is more a consequence
than a cause of problem behaviors in chil-
dren (Mason et al., 1996; McLeod et al.,
1994). Moreover, parents in the African
American community, especially in low-
income urban areas, may use authoritarian
methods in attempts to protect their chil-
dren from noxious social environments.
Awareness of sociocultural differences in the
relationship between parenting practices
and developmental outcomes would put
Black parents’ behavior in proper perspec-
tive, as well as encourage interventions and
policies that address community-level prob-
lems to ensure healthy child development in
high-risk environments.

On the one hand, these controlling
methods of parenting may be effective in
reducing undesirable or high-risk behaviors
of Black children and adolescents (e.g.,
Jemmott & Jemmott, 1992; Mason et al.,
1996; Wasserman et al., 1996). On the
other hand, they may place African Ameri-
can children at risk for other problems, such
as academic failure (Taylor, Hinton, £
Wilson, 1995) and child abuse (Belsky, 1993;
Cappelleri, Eckenrode, & Powers, 1993).
Thus an appreciation of sociocultural differ-
ences in parenting styles and related out-
comes should not lead to unconditional ac-
ceptance of punitive behaviors because of
their cultural significance. As mentioned
earlier, alternative strategies that are cultur-
ally compatible, such as response cost, may
be useful if the motivation is child oriented
and not parent oriented. Sensitivity to dif-
ferences in parenting styles across cultures
simply means that the functional signifi-
cance of spanking should be explored, and
the ecological context in which families live
should be taken i n t o consideration in
theory, research, and practice devoted to
understanding environmental influences on
child development.

C U L T U R E A N D T H E C O N S E Q U E N C E S O F S P A N K I N G 11

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12 W H A 1. E Y

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Correction to Comas-Diaz (1998)

A quotation within the editorial “Ethnic Minority Psychology: Identity, Empowerment, and
Transformation,” by Lillian Comas-Diaz (Cultural Diversity and Mental Health, 1998, Vol. 4, No. 3,
pp. 151-152) was incorrectly attributed to Nelson Mandela and contained errors. The original quote
appeared on p. 151. The corrected quote follows.

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond
measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.” We ask ourselves, Who am I to be
brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God—There’s
nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you… .We were
born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And
as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we’re
liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. (Marianne Williamson, A
Return to Love, 1992, New York: HarperPerennial, pp. 190-191)