Physical discipline and children’s adjustment: Cultural normativeness as a moderator

normativeness of physical discipline moderates the link between mothers ’ use of physical discipline and chil-dren’s adjustment. Multilevel regression analyses revealed that physical discipline was less strongly associated with adverse child outcomes in conditions of greater perceived normativeness, but physical discipline was also associated with more adverse outcomes regardless of its perceived normativeness. Countries with the lowest use of physical discipline showed the strongest association between mothers ’ use and children’s behavior problems, but in all countries higher use of physical discipline was associated with more aggression and anxiety. The effects of physical discipline on North American (primarily White, middle class) samples have receiv-ed a great deal of research attention. Studies that have not taken into account the ethnic or cultural background of the samples have generally found that physical discipline is associated with more child behavior problems such as aggression (Eron, Hues-mann, & Zelli, 1991), delinquency (Farrington & Hawkins, 1991), and criminality (McCord, 1991; se