and 10 of
the 11 child outcomes examined across
childhood. In particular, a large and
growing literature points toward an
association between spanking and
higher levels of aggression among
children.2,7–13 However, there remain
some limitations in the research to
date.14,15 First, few studies have used
longitudinal samples to address the
temporal sequencing of spanking and
child outcomes.8 Second, analysts have
called for greater inclusion of measures
of stress and socioeconomic variables,
especially in light of mixed results on
the extent to which characteristics of
parents, such as race or ethnicity,
moderate the relationship between
spanking and child aggression. Third,
almost all studies have focused on maternal
spanking to the exclusion of paternal
spanking, which limits our
capacity to understand whether parents
are making differential decisions
on corporal punishment and whether
their spanking may be having differential
effects on child outcomes. To the
extent that mothers spend more time
with children and are typically the
primary caregivers, we might expect
maternal spanking to be more strongly
associated with behavioral outcomes.