The Data Does Not Say Spanking Is Bad (Why No One Will Tell You)

In this eye-opening discussion, Malcolm and Simone Collins delve into the controversial topic of corporal punishment and the latest research challenging the mainstream narrative. They examine a groundbreaking 2023 study that found previous research on spanking relied on unadjusted correlations, ignoring crucial factors such as child behavior and genetics. The couple argues that the evidence supporting the benefits of mild, immediate physical correction has been largely overlooked due to ideological biases and the categorization of spanking as a human rights abuse.

Malcolm and Simone also explore the potential psychological damage caused by alternative disciplinary methods, such as emotional punishment, and the evolutionary basis for physical communication with pre-verbal children. They emphasize the importance of cultural diversity in parenting practices and the dangers of imposing a one-size-fits-all approach. Throughout the discussion, the couple shares personal anecdotes and insights from their own parenting journey, advocating for a more nuanced and evidence-based approach to the spanking debate.

Malcolm Collins: , [00:00:00] A really big study came out in 2023 that basically went through all the old research and showed that, yes, I was right to think it was sus . Now, you would assume at the very least, they would be correcting for child behavior, right? In these giant samples. I hope so. Yes, basically, they didn't

And they just used a giant sample size to push under the table that they weren't correcting. If you can't understand why this would be so insane and why this would obviously show that spanking had all of these deleterious outcomes, consider our family. We do not do any form of corporal punishment with our daughter.

Because she just doesn't misbehave in the way our boys misbehave.

In these studies, she would be in the category of non spanking, and my sons would be in the category of spanking, and then they would be like, look, spanking is causing more bad behavior.

I was like, no, you [00:01:00] idiot! 2018, the A. P. A. Task Force on physical punishment of Children recommended an resolution opposing all physical punishment, although the task force cited it. Okay. Thank you. Five meta analyses, they relied almost entirely on Gorshov and Gorgon Kehler's 2016 evidence against physical punishment, which came exclusively from unadjusted correlations.

EXCLUSIVELY from unadjusted correlations The task force ignored two stronger meta analysis that went beyond correlations, these other meta analysis concluded that harmful effects of physical punishment were, quote unquote, trivial. However, the randomized trials find spanking has a slightly positive effect. .

Would you like to know more?

Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone. As we are now widely publicly known as the Abusive parents for our bop strategy to parenting.

Bop It. Twist It. Soccer Boppers! Soccer Boppers! You can sock all day, and bop all night!

Malcolm Collins: Like

Simone Collins: soccer [00:02:00] boppers. Yes. It's more fun than

Malcolm Collins: a pillow fight. This actually brings me to one of the first things that I've really noticed in the few days, because I didn't really think anything about the bop when it happened, and in the few days, in the while, since the initial event, I have now been paying much more attention to how I physically interact with our kids, and it's now really apparent to me, like, how rough I am with them normally, when I'm, especially with the boys, that I

Simone Collins: But In a positive context, I would say like of all the physical interactions we have with our kids, the bopping is probably the lightest and gentlest.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, like I, that was the thing that sort of surprised me and made me realize why I didn't think anything of it, that I like regularly punch the kids while playing or throw them across the room and they just find it hilarious. That doesn't sound very good,

Simone Collins: but aren't we very rough and

Malcolm Collins: tumble kids?

I don't know what to tell you. Anybody who has worked with toddler boys knows that punching is like a cheat code with toddler boys. It's like one of their favorite games. And it doesn't [00:03:00] lead them to like playing rough with each other. I just want to be clear. We actually don't have that problem, but anyway,

Simone Collins: They don't.

They wrestle all the time,

Malcolm Collins: but they don't play rough. Before we go further. One of the things that I love is the piece was like, he hit him so hard with an open handed slap that I could hear it on the recording. And I'm like, do you know, like the sounds that hands make when they hit things? This is like clapping.

You can hear clapping on a recording, but you don't say he was repeatedly beating his own hand. It's just something that makes a sound whenever you do it, not, you don't need to hit something hard. Like that. Yeah, I'm sure

Simone Collins: her recorder probably also picked up the sound of your phone being placed on a table every time you put it down, but that didn't come up.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah. But so I what I wanted to do is this episode, cause I found it really interesting is in the last episode I was like, okay. I just look at the research as somebody who has a training in science and it looks us. And this is where we were when we actually did our research to decide how to parent, right?

I was like, the research [00:04:00] looks us. I think it sucks. Yeah. So I'm going to ignore it and look to other models to see if I can find a better way to do this. And we'll try different methods to see what works for our family. And what works for each kid? Um, it turns out that since I had that intuition, A really big study came out in 2023 that basically went through all the old research and showed that, yes, I was right to think it was sus and the conclusions were morally guided, and that if you did good research which they did, and they did like a meta study on the good research.

It seems that the majority of the evidence right now shows that spanking is slightly positive.

Simone Collins: And by that you mean immediate physical correction? Yeah,

Malcolm Collins: immediate, light, physical correction. Interaction. It doesn't need to be immediate in their studies. So they looked at both immediate and delayed, but I would imagine from other animal models, immediate is really where you're seeing the positive effect, which is why I [00:05:00] suspect they're only seeing a slight positive effect.

Just so you can know why we would think that when you are doing training in other mammals, delayed negative feedback is pretty much never works. So it'd be really weird if it worked in humans. It just

Simone Collins: intuitively, it would make sense that, If there's some kind of delayed repercussion for anything, actually, this showed up Spencer Greenberg a while ago, did some research on.

Whether or not gut response or intuition is a reliable thing if it's real, essentially. And what he found was that yes, intuition is real if or when it is related to activities in which you get, Repeated in high volume, regular and immediate response and feedback which goes to show that basically you can't train someone to instinctually change their behavior or responses if there is a lack of immediate feedback.

And that is why immediate feedback is important. So you can see cross disciplinary patterns or echoes here. It's

Malcolm Collins: really important because this means tha