Impulsive Corporal Punishment by Mothers and Antisocial Behavior and

This study tested the hypothesis that corporal punish-ment (CP), such as spanking or slapping a child for purposes of correcting misbehavior, is associated with antisocial behavior (ASB) and impulsiveness by the child. The data were obtained through interviews with a probability sample of 933 mothers of children age 2–14 in two small American cities. Analyses of variance found that the more CP experienced by the child, the greater the tendency for the child to engage in ASB and to act impulsively. These relationships hold even after control-ling for family socioeconomic status, the age and sex of the child, nurturance by themother, and the level of non-corporal interventions by the mother. There were also significant interaction eects of CP with impulsiveness by the mother. When CP was carried out impulsively, it was most strongly related to child impulsiveness and ASB; when CP was done when the mother was under control, the relationship to child behavior problems was reduced but still present. ln view of the fact that there is a high risk of losing control when engaged in CP, even by parents who are not usually impulsive, and the fact that impulsive CP is so strongly associated with child behavior problems, the results of this study suggest that CP is an important risk factor for children developing a pattern of impulsive and antisocial behavior which, in turn, may contribute to the level of violence and other crime in society. # 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Corporal punishment, such as spanking on the buttocks or slapping a child’s hand, has been defined as an act carried out with the intention of causing a child t