Peer-reviewed article
Exploring Factors Associated With Self-Reported Parental Spanking and Hitting Out of Anger: Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Analyses Using National Panel Data.
Mehus CJ, Díaz-Howard AM, He Y, Ballard J, Terry-McElrath Y et al. ·
Summary
Written by AI, not yet AICS's view · claude-haiku-4-5-20251001This study examined factors associated with parental corporal punishment in the United States using national survey data from parents aged 35 and 40. The research found that spanking and hitting children out of anger are associated with different risk factors, with depression and alcohol use being linked to hitting in anger. Parents who reported spanking at age 35 were significantly more likely to report hitting their children in anger five years later.
Key points
- More than one in three US parents report using corporal punishment to discipline children
- Spanking and hitting out of anger were associated with different sets of risk factors
- Parents reporting spanking at age 35 had 2.1 times greater odds of reporting hitting out of anger at age 40
- Depressive symptoms (adjusted odds ratio 1.24) and disordered alcohol use (adjusted odds ratio 1.55) were associated with hitting children out of anger
- The longitudinal finding suggests corporal punishment may escalate or evolve over time
Limitations
The study relies on self-reported parental behaviour which may be subject to social desirability bias and underreporting. The research cannot determine causality or establish whether escalation actually occurs or whether measurement approaches changed over the five-year period.
Abstract
More than one in three US parents use corporal punishment to discipline their children. The objective of this study is to add to a greater understanding of factors associated with self-reported corporal punishment, based on two survey items: one that asked about use of spanking and one that asked about hitting out of anger. The second objective was to examine the longitudinal relationship between parents' self-reported use of spanking at age 35 and their self-reports of hitting out of anger 5 years later. To accomplish these objectives, national US Monitoring the Future Panel Study data were used as follows. Objective 1: data collected in 1993-2020 from parents age 35 with child(ren) ages 2-12 at home. Objective 2: data collected in 1998-2020 from parents age 40 with child(ren) ages 7-17 at home. We conducted multinomial logistic regression to accomplish the objectives. Most factors significantly associated with increased odds of reporting spanking at age 35 differed from the factors associated with increased odds of reporting hitting out of anger at age 35. Reporting spanking at age 35 was associated with greater odds of reporting hitting out of anger at age 40 (aOR = 2.10, 95% CI: 1.71, 2.58). Depressive symptoms (aOR = 1.24, 95% CI: 1.09, 1.40) and disordered alcohol use (aOR = 1.55, 95% CI: 1.14, 2.11) were associated with greater odds of reporting hitting out of anger. Future research should continue to examine whether different types of corporal punishment have different determinants, whether and in what ways corporal punishment may escalate over time, and whether measurement error may impact this research.
Findings the Hub has extracted
Each claim below is labelled by its type of design and links back to this report.
- Intervention
- Monitoring and analysis of parental self-reported corporal punishment practices and associated risk factors including depression and alcohol use
- Population
- US parents aged 35 and 40 with children at home, drawn from the Monitoring the Future Panel Study (1993-2020)
Key finding
Spanking at age 35 associated with 2.10 times greater odds of hitting out of anger at age 40 (95% CI: 1.71, 2.58)
CJ et al. · Europe PMC · 19 Oct 2026