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Comment by xupybd | Hacker News Reader

I'm happy to say these guys are the experts and know better than me but this really flies in the face of all the anecdotal evidence I've seen.

From my peers those that grew up in strict Muslim and Christian homes, where they did get corporal punishment, they were much better behaved. That has also translated into their success now they're in their 30s.

But those who also got corporal punishment in more dysfunctional households have had terrible outcomes. Their "punishment" was probably much closer to child abuse that those from the other group.

I was not spanked my self so I have no personal reference, only that I was far worse in self discipline than the first group. I'd have expected this study to show some correlation between self discipline and spanking. I can't help but think they've conflated child abuse and hitting out of anger with spanking.

That said, I'm no expert.

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Based on just your comment, the correlation fails.

I mean, if such individuals are indeed more successful, it’s significantly more likely because of the fact that they’ve been raised in strict Muslim or Christian households, and the plethora of things that go with that, rather than the fact that one of those many things is spanking.

Just as an example, in a strict Muslim household you wouldn’t be drinking alcohol. Of all the factors that would affect success, spanking would probably be dwarfed by just that single factor.

Guy-guessing: Some people and some cultures believe spanking is the same as caring ("Spare the rod and spoil the child") and in such cultures or such families a certain measure of spanking might actually be an indicator of better home conditions.

I’ve found that in those “successful” groups there’s a tendency to be extremely reserved, especially with emotions. Corporal punishment to me is almost always correlated with a lack of expressiveness later in life.

Perhaps but the lack of any good traits being correlated and the clear statement that they found none seems very counter intuitive.

All spanking is child abuse. Full stop.

From what you've described, there is zero reason to believe that the spankings your peers in the strict Muslim and Christian homes was a factor in their later success.

I have to disagree with you here and agree with the person above you. There is a major and distinct difference between using negative reinforce and child abuse.

Also the study concludes that countries where spanking is bad results into adults getting in less physical confrontations. But do they chose that based on better solutions or does it mean a population afraid of serious confrontations.

I have 6 kids, some got spanked others not at all. But when you have a 3 yr old who isn't listening and may put themselves in danger with their actions, sometimes a quick attention getting spank can save a life or at least a hospital visit.

Trying to place a black/white filter on something like this is intellectually vacuous.

>All spanking is child abuse

I hope you understand the distinction I was trying to make.

I’d have expected a correlation to show up.

There's a hell of a lot more different between the families you described then whether they used spanking.

Do you think when Christian or Muslim parents are spanking their children that they are not angry?

I’m not assuming they are good at it but my understanding of traditional Christian doctrine is that it should never be done in anger. I’m not sure about the Muslim teaching on it but thought Jewish, Muslim and Christian teaching on this was similar.

One could hypothesise that being moderately abused makes you more subservient which could help in being (moderately) successful.

Yes, something need not have a net positive effect to yield correlations to some positives. It’s seems very strange to me that they could detect zero such correlations.

I was spanked and I would never ever do it. It's abusive, confusing, weird, unconstructive, inarticulate and ultimately not in any way something a loving person would do to anyone. I think it says something about the person who does it.

I was spanked until I was 12, after that, I was lectured. But I knew I deserved a spanking when I got lectured. My folks only spanked when it was warranted and other parents always marveled at how well behaved I and my siblings were.

It wasn't child abuse by any stretch, and I benefited from the self discipline I learned.

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