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The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child

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Why Do Parents Hit Their Children? From Culturalto Unconscious Determinants

George W. Holden

To cite this article: George W. Holden (2020) Why Do Parents Hit Their Children? FromCultural to Unconscious Determinants, The Psychoanalytic Study of the Child, 73:1, 10-29, DOI:10.1080/00797308.2020.1690858

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00797308.2020.1690858

Published online: 26 Mar 2020.

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Why Do Parents Hit Their Children? From Cultural toUnconscious DeterminantsGeorge W. Holden, Ph.D.

Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University

ABSTRACTParental use of corporal punishment (CP) as a way of discipliningchildren is a widespread global problem. A number of child andfamily problems are linked to the behavior. Despite being commonlyused to discipline children in many countries, its use is far fromuniversal. Why do some parents use it while others do not? Thispaper examines the principal determinants, or predictors, that influ-ence parental use of this form of punishment. I begin with a briefhistorical overview of the efforts to study the determinants of par-ental behavior. I then provide a brief summary of the four majorcategories of variables that predict CP use: socio-cultural influences;the family and social environment; child variables; and parental vari-ables. Two types of parental variables – conscious thoughts as well asunconscious motives–will be examined in some detail. It is note-worthy that unconscious forces have received little research attentionand typically go ignored. This raises an important methodologicalpoint: how CP is assessed affects the determinants studied. Thearticle ends with a discussion of some future directions for thestudy of the predictors of CP and other disciplinary responses.

KEYWORDSChildrearing; discipline;corporal punishment;determinants

What causes some parents to frequently punish their children with a slap or a spank whileother parents regard such disciplinary behavior as an antiquated practice or perhaps anegregious assault on a child’s dignity? The answer to why a parent behaves in one way oranother is significant for several reasons. In the case of hitting a child – commonly andeuphemistically called corporal punishment (CP) – there is now a very large corpus ofstudies, numbering well over 1,500 empirical investigations, that have established that thisbehavior is linked to a variety of negative outcomes in children. The problems includea vast spectrum of behavioral, relationship, and emotional difficulties, as well as physicalchild abuse (e.g., Gershoff et al. 2018; Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor 2016; Zolotor et al.2011b). Pinpointing those variables that predict, serve to initiate, or contribute to the useof CP must be understood if preventive measures are to be effective.

As of 2019, legislative bans exist in fifty-six countries that outlaw physical punishmentin all venues and by all individuals, including parents. However, in most countries, CPcontinues to be widely upon the sample characteristics and the nature of particularquestion asked regarding CP, somewhere between 65% and 94% report that at the veryleast, they sometimes spank or slap their children (e.g., Regalado et al. 2004; Straus and

CONTACT George W. Holden gholden@smu.edu Department of Psychology, Southern Methodist University,Dallas, TX 75275Color versions of one or more of the figures in the article can be found online at www.tandfonline.com/upsc.

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD2020, VOL. 73, NO. 1, 10–29https://doi.org/10.1080/00797308.2020.1690858

© 2020 Claudia Lament, Rona Knight, and Wendy Olesker

Stewart 1999; Zolotor et al. 2011a). The fact that there is substantial variability in the rateof CP use makes it a ripe candidate for investigations into its determinants.

This review will begin with a brief history into parenting predictors. Following this,a review of the central categories of predictors of CP will be presented, along with a modelthat elucidates them: socio-cultural influences, family and the social environment, childvariables, and parent variables. Among the parent variables are those unconscious motiveswithin the minds of parents that may trigger their punishing behaviors toward theirchildren. In this paper, the term “unconscious” refers to those influences on thoughtsand behavior that are without intention, awareness, or conscious guidance (e.g., Chartrandand Bargh 2002). A short discussion of the type of methodologies used to assess parentaluse of CP will follow; it will be shown that the methodology selected has clear implicationsfor the types of determinants that are identified and studied. The review concludes withsuggestions for future research into the predictors of CP and alternate disciplinaryresponses.

Research into the determinants of parenting

One of the earliest efforts to systemically investigate why parents use particular child-rearing practices occurred in the 1960s, in a ground-breaking book published by thepsychologist Lois Meek Stolz (1967). She conducted interviews of seventy-eightmothers and fathers which focused on the beliefs and values they held that informedtheir child-rearing practices. Her conclusion was that parenting is affected by compet-ing variables and pressures. Only some of those variables win out and determineparental behavior. Since that book appeared, several researchers have developed mod-els to depict key conceptual categories representing the influences on parenting.Beginning in the 1980s, formal models of parenting determinants have been publishedby Harmon and Brim (1980), Belsky (1984), Abidin (1992), and most recently,Taraban and Shaw (2018).

Belsky’s work (1984) has been particularly influential. His model identified three centralcategories of determinants: parental personal psychological resources (i.e., personality, age);child characteristics (i.e., sex, temperament); and contextual sources of stress and support(i.e., marital relationship, social network). The model was designed to reflect the multi-determined nature of child rearing, with the initial influence being the parent’s owndevelopmental history that then contributed to the parent’s personality. Belsky believedthat the parent’s personality was the single most important determinant, but he recognizedthat parenting was also influenced by marital relations, the work place, the parent’s socialnetwork, as well as the child’s characteristics. Although the model captured some of thekey categories of influence and has been useful in guiding research efforts, it failed torecognize the immediate impact of cognitive, emotional, or unconscious determinants thattrigger behavior as well as situational influences. It also ignored factors such as the over-arching culture, the impact of the social context, such as the neighborhood norms andmores, and the influence of the family’s ethnic/racial characteristics. Subsequent researchinto parental determinants has identified many new variables that impact parenting andtheir interrelations, as illuminated in a review by Bornstein (2016).

In a revision of Belsky’s (1984) model, Taraban and Shaw (2018) proposed modificationsin several categories. They concurred with Belsky that two of the three key categories of

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD 11

determinants were parental characteristics and child characteristics. But, in line withBornstein’s review, Taraban and Shaw recognized that parental characteristics that deter-mined child rearing included many more variables than simply the parent’s developmentalhistory and personality. They also identified the role of parental gender, cognitions, andemotions in influencing behavior. In a revised model, Taraban and Shaw expanded Belsky’soriginal category of contextual sources of stress and support into a category of family andsocial environment that includes the family structure and marital quality. Furthermore, theyrecognized that the influence of socioeconomic status could permeate many categories. Theupdated and revised model provides a useful framework for organizing many of the variablesthat have been identified as determinants of CP. That model, with the pertinent variables thathave been found to be determinants of CP, is depicted in Figure 1.

Determinants of parental use of corporal punishment

The term “corporal punishment,” synonymous with physical punishment, refers to the useof physical force with the intention of causing a child to experience pain, but not injury,for the purpose of correcting or controlling a child’s behavior (Straus 2001). Why a parentdisciplines a child with CP has occupied researchers’ attention for at least thirty years,under the labels of “determinants” (Jansen et al. 2012; Kelley, Power, and Wimbush 1992),“predictors” (Crockenberg 1987; Grogan-Kaylor et al. 2018), “characteristics” (Giles-Sims,Straus, and Sugarman 1995; Perron et al. 2014), and “motives” (Hoffman 1963; McLoydand Smith 2002). In this article, those terms will be used interchangeably.

Given the variability in parental use of CP, investigations into the characteristics of parentswho use CP have proven to be a fertile area for study. For example, some investigators haveexamined parental, child, and neighborhood characteristics associated with parental use ofCP (e.g., Grogan-Kaylor and Otis 2007). Other researchers have explored the variables thatdifferentiate mothers who spank their infants from those who do not (e.g., Combs-Orme andCain 2008), compared mothers and fathers who spank with non-spanking parents (e.g., Day,

Figure 1. A model of the determinants of parenting, based on Taraban and Shaw (2018).

12 G. W. HOLDEN

Peterson, and McCracken 1998), or examined CP use in different groups of parents, such asimmigrant versus U.S.-born Hispanics (Lee and Altschul 2015).

It is helpful to keep in mind that predictors can be divided into “between-parent” and“within-parent” variables. Between-parent determinants are based on studies that comparetwo or more groups of parents, such as mothers vs. fathers, or parents from differentcultures. On the other hand, within-parent determinants are those variables that reside inindividual parents and influence whether or not a parent will spank in a particularsituation. Figure 1, based on Taraban and Shaw’s model, captures a total of eighteenbetween-parent and within-parent variables.

At the center of the figure, the box represents the particular situation (e.g., home,time of day) where CP occurs. For example, parents are more apt to use CP in the lateafternoon than any other time of the day (Holden, Coleman, and Schmidt 1995).Beyond the immediate situational determinants, Figure 1 contains four other cate-gories: socio-cultural, family social environment, child, and parent characteristics.

Socio-cultural determinants

Socio-cultural determinants refer to the between-parent factors that encompass theaccepted beliefs, social norms, or standards of behavior where the parent resides. Thecountry where a parent resides provides one example. In countries where violence is morecommon and accepted as normative, CP is more common (Lansford and Dodge 2008).The differences in the amount of CP between countries can be very dramatic. Forexample, in Kenya or the Philippines, harsh physical punishment is commonplace (e.g.,Gershoff 2010; Zolotor and Puzia 2010). In contrast, the use of CP in Scandinaviancountries, where the disciplinary practice has been legislatively banned for decades, isvery rare (Leviner and Sardiello 2019).

Within countries, another determinant is socioeconomic status. It is regularly foundthat parents who identify as being a member of a lower socioeconomic status groupare more likely to use and approve of CP than parents from a higher socioeconomicstatus. This socioeconomic influence has been documented both in the United States(e.g., Erlanger 1974; Pinderhughes et al. 2000; Ryan et al. 2016; Straus and Stewart1999) and in other countries (e.g., Beatriz and Salhi 2019). In addition to country andsocioeconomic status, regional differences within a country can influence the frequencyof CP (Nisbett 1993). In the United States, CP is more widely accepted in the souththan in the north, mid-west, or west (e.g., Flynn 1996). Regional differences in rates ofCP have also been documented in other countries as well, such as the Ukraine(Grogan-Kaylor et al. 2018).

One other frequently studied socio-cultural determinant is the specific neighborhoodwhere the family resides. The perceived quality of the neighborhood (e.g., degree ofviolence or access to economic resources) is linked to CP use. In low-quality, high-riskneighborhoods, parents are more likely to use CP and other authoritarian disciplinarypractices, compared with parents who reside in safer communities (e.g., Eamon 2001;Grogan-Kaylor 2005; White et al. 2019).

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD 13

Family social environment determinants

A second category of between-parent determinants consists of the family social environ-ment. This category includes variables such as family structure, marital relationship, andstress. In terms of family structure, harsh discipline is more common in large families andsingle parent homes (e.g., Giles-Sims, Straus, and Sugarman 1995; MacKenzie et al. 2011;Perron et al. 2014). The quality of the marital relationship also can impact CP use, withhappy couples less likely to engage in harsh discipline (Leary et al. 2008). Similarly, incouples characterized with high levels of conflict and intimate partner violence, CP islikely to “spill-over” into the parent-child relationship (Lee et al. 2011; Taylor et al. 2010;Winstok 2015). Family stress and life stressors are also commonly found to be determi-nants of CP (e.g., Combs-Orme and Cain 2008; Fréchette and Romano 2017; MacKenzieet al. 2011; Pinderhughes et al., 2000).

Child determinants

Child variables capture the third major set of determinants. For various reasons, thesechild characteristic or behavioral variables are found to systematically trigger CP in someparents. The child variables studied most frequently are the child’s age, sex, behavior,temperament, and the presence of a disability. Many studies have documented how CP isa function of a child’s age, with toddlers and preschoolers being most at risk (e.g., Jacksonet al. 1999; Taillieu et al. 2014; Vittrup, Holden, and Buck 2006). However, even adoles-cent children can get spanked or slapped by some parents (Straus and Stewart 1999).

Child sex is also a key determinant, as summarized in a review by Lytton and Romney(1991). When girls are toddlers and preschoolers, they tend to be spanked equally often asboys. But by the age six, they are hit less often than boys (Khoury-Kassabri, Attar-Schwartz, and Zur 2014; Lee et al. 2011). However, a recent study about CP and childsex illustrates how the determinants can be more complex than is sometimes reported.Mehlhausen-Hassoen (in press) used college students’ reports of being spanked to exam-ine the interaction between the sex of children and their parents. He found that malesremembered receiving more CP from both mothers and fathers than females rememberedwhen the subjects in both groups were between the ages of 6 to 12 years. But fathersreportedly spanked their sons more often than their daughters, indicating an interactionbetween child and parent sex.1

Other child characteristics have also been implicated as predictors of CP. A childperceived to have a challenging temperament (such as being fussy or difficult) is moreapt to be hit than an easy-going child (e.g., Berlin et al. 2009; Combs-Orme and Cain2008). Similarly, children who exhibit disobedience, disrespect of parents, or externalizingbehavior problems (i.e., aggression, noncompliance) are more likely to be spanked thanother children (e.g., Grogan-Kaylor and Otis 2007; Holden, Coleman, and Schmidt 1995;Jaffee et al. 2004; Youssef, Attia, and Kamel 1998). Another predictor is the presence ofa cognitive or physical disability: children with disabilities are at a higher risk of being hitby parents than other children (Hendricks, Lansford, Deater-Deckard, & Bornstein, 2014).

An additional example of this category of predictors is the child’s reaction to CP. Ina study of 108 mothers, two-thirds reported that they changed their disciplinary behaviorin response to how their child reacted to being spanked (Holden et al. 1997). Most

14 G. W. HOLDEN

mothers abandoned continued use of CP when they saw how upset their children becameor upon realizing that they were using violence in an attempt to change their children’sbehavior. The fact that parents modify their child-rearing practices based on the child’sbehavior illustrates what is dubbed a “child effect” or when a child’s characteristics orbehavior influences the parent’s behavior.

Parental determinants

The final category of predictors listed in Figure 1 is the most frequently studied one –the characteristics of parents. Six types of parent variables have been investigated aspredictors of CP: demographics, childhood history, mental health, emotions, consciousthoughts (commonly called social cognition), and most recently, the unconscious. Dueto space limiations, the first three types of variables will receive only cursorysummaries.

Demographic variablesFour parent characteristics that can be classified as demographic variables have beenfrequently investigated: age, gender, race/ethnicity, and education. Due to the largenumber of studies published, only a few examples of each will be used to illustrate thefindings. With regard to parental age, reports of spanking or positive attitudes towardCP are typically more common in younger than in older parents (e.g., Combs-Orme andCain 2008; Day, Peterson, and McCracken 1998; Woodward and Fergusson 2002).When comparing mothers with fathers, mothers generally report engaging in moreCP than in fathers (Lee and Altschul 2015; MacKenzie et al. 2011). Part of the explana-tion for that finding is that mothers typically spend more time with children thanfathers.

With regard to race/ethnicity, some studies find that African Americans compared withwhite or Latinx parents (Gershoff et al. 2012; Taillieu et al. 2014) are more likely to spankor to express favorable attitudes toward CP. But the studies are inconsistent. One reasonfor the variability across investigations can sometimes be attributed to a failure to controlfor socioeconomic status or parental education (e.g., Berlin et al. 2009). Multiple studieshave found that the more educated the individual, the less he or she approves of or reportsusing spanking (e.g., Dietz 2000; Kelley, Sanchez-Hucles, and Walker 1993). Ignoring thesocioeconomic status or education of the parent may well confound the findings regardingracial/ethnic differences.

Childhood historyNot surprisingly, individuals who were spanked grow up to have more positive attitudesabout use of physical aggression and are likely to be parents who spank or have positiveattitudes toward CP (e.g, Deater-Deckard et al. 2003; Graziano and Namaste 1990;Lunkenheimer et al. 2006; Markowitz 2001; Simons and Wurtele 2010). These findingsreflect a potent determinant of CP and illustrate the intergenerational transmission of thepractice. Another childhood history variable concerns adversities experienced. Ironically,individuals with certain adverse childhood experiences, such as being survivors of mal-treatment are also more likely to have positive orientations to harsh punishment (Clémentand Chamberland 2009; Gagne et al. 2007),

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD 15

Mental healthThe mental health of the parent has also been related to CP use. Most commonly,depressive symptoms or even clinical depression has been found to be predictive of CPreports with children (Berlin et al. 2009; Callender et al. 2012; Leung and Slep 2006). Ina study of mothers and infants, mothers who spanked reported significantly more symp-toms of anxiety and depression than mothers who did not spank (Combs-Orme and Cain2008). Other examples of mental health variables that can predict physical punishmentinclude frustration (Russa, Rodriguez, and Silvia 2014) and physiological overreactivity.Parents who are overreactive are more likely to respond to challenging stimuli, such asinfant crying, with harsh discipline than other parents (Joosen et al. 2013).

EmotionsEmotions or emotional state of the parent represents a proximate determinant of spank-ing. As discussed by Dix (1991), appropriate emotional activation is necessary for effectiveparenting, and it can be a key driver of inappropriate child rearing. When many parentsbecome angry with their children they are at greater risk of using CP. Thus, negativeemotions reflect a second common pathway that can result in CP (cognitions being thefirst one). For example, in a study where mothers wore audio recorders for up to fivenights in order to document their normally occurring behavior in the home, manyexamples of CP were heard. In 49% of the cases, mothers were clearly angry when theyspanked their children (Holden, Williamson, and Holland 2014). Negative emotion asa determinant of CP does not become activated in all parents; it only occurs in parentswho believe in CP or perhaps are ambivalent about it (Holden, Coleman, and Schmidt1995). So parents who do not believe in using CP will typically not engage in it, even whenthey are angry.

A number of studies have replicated the result that parents who are in a negativeemotional state are more likely to spank or slap their children (e.g., Ateah and Durrant2005; Cheng et al. 2018; Grogan-Kaylor et al. 2018; Leary et al. 2008). But more often, theparent is triggered because their child is being noncompliant. The adult, in an unregulatedmoment, quickly lashes out. According to the audio recordings of home interactions, theaverage time lapse between onset of a parent-child conflict and a spank or slap was30 seconds (Holden, Williamson, and Holland 2014).

Conscious thoughtsConscious thoughts, typically called “social cognition” in the research literature, refers tothoughts about other people. This dimension has been especially fruitful in its applicationto understanding how parents parent (Azar, Reitz, and Goslin 2008; Holden 2020).Considerable attention has been devoted to the role of parental social cognition asa determinant of CP. In specific, four types of variables have been related to harshpunishment: beliefs, attitudes, attributions, and perceptions.

Beliefs. Beliefs are cognitions that individuals accept as true and acquired from experienceor some form of education (Holden and Smith 2019). Studies have revealed that parentshold multiple, discrete thoughts about CP. First, parents do not believe they are “hitting”or “assaulting” their children when they spank them. Rather, when parents who spankthink or talk about CP, they use terms like “correcting,” “disciplining,” or “teaching”

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(Brown, Holden, and Ashraf 2018; Fréchette and Romano 2017). Many parents who spankor slap their children believe it has instrumental value – by using it, there will be positiveoutcomes (e.g., child complies and becomes appropriately socialized). In a study usinga 17-item survey of CP beliefs, factor analysis, two prominent underlying beliefs wereidentified through a factor analysis: CP is harmless, and CP is necessary as well as effective(Kish and Newcombe 2015). Parents who spank do not believe that CP will result innegative child outcomes, such as being angry at the parent, feeling humiliated, or devel-oping physically aggressive strategies when faced with conflict (Holden, Miller, and Harris1999).

Another CP-related belief concerns role reversals. In this case, when mothers thoughttheir infants should serve as a source of their own gratification, they were more likely toreport using CP (Combs-Orme and Cain 2008). Similarly, CP is more common in parentswho believe that the use of CP fits into authoritarian principles and religious doctrine.Conservative Protestant Christians who subscribe to literalist beliefs about the Bible useand approve of CP more than other parents (e.g., Gershoff, Miller, and Holden 1999;Hoffmann, Ellison, and Bartkowski 2017). A final example of how beliefs can predict CPapproval or use concerned parents’ beliefs about their children’s personality. Parents whohad “high entity” beliefs, reflecting the view that a child’s personality is fixed, were morelikely to make hostile attributions to the child’s misbehavior and to resort to harshpunishments, in contrast to parents who saw their children’s personalities as malleable(Rutledge et al. 2018).

Attitudes. Attitudes are a function of beliefs and refer to the positive or negative evaluationsof beliefs. A number of studies have documented their utility in predicting CP behavior. Forexample, mothers’ attitudes toward CP when their infants were 6-months-old predicted theirCP behavioral reports when their children were 48 months old (Vittrup, Holden, and Buck2006). Attitudes toward CP were highly stable across 2½ years. In a recent longitudinal studyinvolving 320 Chinese mothers and fathers, investigators found evidence that positiveattitudes toward CP predicted subsequent spanking behavior one year later, but spankingbehavior did not predict positive attitudes (Xing et al. 2019).

Positive attitudes toward CP predict spanking behavior but are not immutable.Convincing new information about the dangers associated with spanking children canserve to challenge and then modify the underlying beliefs. In a two sample study, Holdenet al. (2014) showed decreases in positive CP attitudes in both college students andparents. Although individuals with extreme views are unlikely to modify their beliefs,most individuals will consider changing their views, particularly when exposed to newinformation.

Attributions. Attributions refer to thoughts about the causes of behavior. Inappropriatecausal assessments by the parents about the child’s behavior are associated with CP.Mothers who rated their children’s misbehavior as intentional (e.g., Burchinal, Skinner,and Reznick 2010), or as severe (e.g., Combs-Orme and Cain 2008) were more likely toengage in CP. Similarly, mothers who attributed intentionality to the child’s interactionswith them endorsed items such as “my child tries to push my buttons,” “my child is verydemanding,” or “my child thinks that he/she is the boss” are more likely to engage in CP(Sturge-Apple, Suor, and Skibo 2014).

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Perceptions. Several different types of perceptions have been implicated in influencingparents’ use of CP. Foremost is the variable of child temperament, previously mentionedas a child determinant. Parents who perceive their children as “difficult” or havinga “difficult temperament” (e.g., MacKenzie et al. 2011; Mulvaney and Mebert 2007) aremore likely to engage in CP than other parents.

Another type of perception that can be a predictor of CP are views concerning socialnorms about CP. Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior, perceptions of norms arerecognized to be key determinants of behavior (Fishbein and Ajzen 2011). Two types ofnorms have been investigated: descriptive and injunctive. Descriptive norms refer toperceptions about how people behave whereas injunctive norms concern perceptions ofsocial approval for a behavior or what people ought to do. In the case of CP, bothperceived descriptive and injunctive norms are strong predictors of attitudes toward CP(e.g., Klevens et al. 2019; Taylor et al. 2011).

Unconscious motivesThe final category of parental determinants consists of those factors that are not readilyaccessible to conscious awareness. Their “invisibility” coupled with their “defiance” ofrational thought makes the tracking of unconscious determinants of vital importance tounderstanding the determinants and persistence of physical punishment. Unconsciousmotivators have been considered from two perspectives: the work of psychoanalytically-informed analysts and, more recently, psychologists.

The psychoanalytic approach. Psychoanalytic scholars, following the work of SigmundFreud and Anna Freud, have long recognized the role of the unconscious in motivatinghuman behavior (Cohler and Paul 2019). This perspective asks a unique question: whatunconscious parental needs are being served by using CP? Or, to phrase it differently,what forces within parents drives their use of CP?

One of the first examples comes from Winnicott (1949), who speculated about thereasons why a mother could become angry with or even hate her infant or young child. Hespeculated that anger could stem from multiple thoughts, such as how the baby interfereswith her life, the pain she experiences when the baby bites her nipples during breastfeed-ing, or the failure of her child to express appreciation for her. Although Winnicott did notexplicitly connect parental anger to CP, he did recount some of the difficulties heexperienced with a 9-year-old foster child. The time spent as a foster parent was “threemonths of hell.” He wrote that he would have hit the child if he had been unaware of hisown hate.

Selma Fraiberg and her colleagues inspired further thinking about unconscious influ-ences in parenting with their renowned “ghosts in the nursery” paper (Fraiberg, Adelson,and Shapiro 1975). A case study was described involving a woman who recalled childhoodbeatings by her stepfather. However, the woman did not remember the terror and help-lessness she experienced because her original emotional reactions had been repressed.Fraiberg and her colleagues posited that while such individuals may not remember thepsychological pain of childhood wounds, they are at risk for reexperiencing it when theybecome parents. For instance, through the mechanism of the unconscious identificationwith the abusive parent, a maltreated child who grows up to become a parent may findherself looking for rationalizations to justify physically punishing her own child. The

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concept of “latent ghosts” influencing parenting has helped to prompt not only scholarsbut clinicans to consider the long-term impact of punitive child-rearing practices and theintergenerational transmission of trauma that may follow (Montgomery, Just-Østergaard,and Jervelund 2019).

Another seminal thinker in the recognition of the role of unconscious forces operatingin disciplinary incidents was Alice Miller. In her book For your own good, Miller (1984)labeled physical punishment as ‘poisonous pedagogy.” She described how experiencingcruel child-rearing practices in childhood (such as spankings), could result in the childgrowing up to engage in child-rearing violence as an adult. She explained: “For parents’motives are the same today as they were then: in beating their children, they are strugglingto regain the power they once lost to their own parents” (p. 16). She went on to identifyfive other unconscious motives.

A second motive was that spanking provides a vehicle for humiliating the child, in thesame way the parent might have felt humiliated as a child. A third motive involvescatharsis as a way to obtain revenge for the pain the parent herself experienced inchildhood, now displaced onto her child. Fourth, harsh punishment toward a childcould serve as an outlet for repressed anger meant for one’s parent. A fifth motiveconcerns the issue I referenced above with respect to Fraiberg, Adelson, and Shapiro(1975): Through the process of unconscious identification, the child adopts her ownparent’s disciplinary techniques. By idealizing and then using the disciplinary practicesof one’s own parent, the former child, now a parent, would not consciously recognize thecruelty that she would be inflicting upon her own child. A sixth motive is the use of CP toprevent the possible reappearance of a disturbing childhood experience that the parenthad long repressed. That is, if one’s own child reenacted a parent’s childhood experience,the parent may fear a re-traumatization.

Other psychoanalytically-oriented scholars have suggested additional motives. Forexample, Breiner (1979) believed that those who commit physical acts of aggression inadult life are often individuals with mental illness or character disorders. He also proposedthat for victims of violence in childhood, physical punishment may be leveraged asa regulator of fear. Specifically, the individual may be frightened of feeling passivelyovercome by her own rage or other feelings; thus, she employs an active, punitive measureof punishment toward a child to control this fear. Still other motives can involve sadismand masochism that stemmed from early sadomasochistic relationship with mothers(Novick and Novick 1972, 2013), or the universality of the parental hatred of children(Rosenblitt 2008). A list of the prominent motives for engaging in CP, as gathered froma psychoanalytic perspective are provided in Table 1.

The psychological approach. Psychologists have taken a different tact to empiricallyinvestigate unconscious thoughts that may influence conscious thoughts, affect, andbehavior. Using a dual-process model of cognition, psychologists recognize the presenceof both explicit and implicit attitudes (e.g., Johnston et al. 2017; Wilson, Lindsey, andSchooler 2000). Explicit attitudes that are acceptable to standard self-report procedures arebelieved to be under conscious control. In contrast, implicit attitudes are unconscious andimpulsive, inaccessible to standard self-report measures.

In an effort to access implicit attitudes–in part to avoid some of the problems associatedwith verbal reports of behavior or attitudes–a number of investigators have begun to

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD 19

develop novel methodological techniques (e.g., Fazio and Olson 2003). The most com-monly used tool is the Implicit Association Test (IAT) (Greenwald, McGhee, andSchwartz 1998). It has now been used in hundreds of studies and, in a meta-analysis,found to have good predictive validity for such topics as racial attitudes (Greenwald,Poehlman, Uhlmann, & Banaji, 2009).

Implicit measures of parenting and more generally, the implicit attitude construct, havealso begun to prove their value for understanding the relations between parenting andchild maltreatment. In a review of thirty-three studies that employed implicit measureswith high risk or abusive parents as well as comparison parents, evidence for the utility ofincluding implicit measures was found in most of the studies. This held for research intonegative affect, social cognitions, and negative or harsh parenting (Camilo, Garrido, andCalheiros 2016).

Three examples of implicit attitude approach to childrearing will be provided toillustrate this approach to unconscious thoughts. Crouch et al. (2012) discovered thatparents who had faster reaction times to negative rather than positive words, had a higherpotential for child abuse. Although CP was not measured in this study, the same parentswho were at risk for child abuse would likely be prone to use it. A second study didinclude a measure of harsh punishment. Rodriguez, Cook, and Jedrziewski (2012) used aneye-tracking instrument to assess the processing difficulty that participants exhibited whenreading child misbehavior vignettes that varied on the degree of child culpability. It wasdetermined that empathic parents read vignettes that attributed blame toward a childmore slowly than the other parents. Those empathic parents were less likely than the otherparents to report the intention to use harsh punishments.

The most explicit effort to measure implicit CP attitudes was conducted by Sturge-Apple and her colleagues (Sturge-Apple et al. 2015). They used a previously developed(Nosek and Banaji 2001) computer-based reaction time task (the Go/No-go AssociationTest) for a new purpose–to assess implicit positive and negative attitudes toward CP. Theword association task consisted of sorting words presented on a computer screen into

Table 1. Examples of motives for using CP from a psychoanalytic perspective.Source Motive

Winnicott 1949 Mother may hate her child for many reasons and so punishes harshly.Breiner 1979 CP provides a socially acceptable way to deal with the fear of being overwhelmed by one’s

aggressive impulses by identifying with the parent and using his/her disciplinary techniques.Miller 1984 CP regains power once lost to parents or to dominate and possess the child.Miller 1984 CP passes on the humiliation parent experienced as a child.Miller 1984 CP is a way to express revenge for the pain one has suffered.Miller 1984 CP provides an outlet for repressed anger due to pain and/or emotional betrayal of parent.Miller 1984 CP is used as a defense mechanism of identification. By dogmatically adopting a parent’s

pedagogical principles, the parent is idealized and the CP experienced as a child is no longerperceived as negative.

Miller 1984 CP provides a means to stamp out the reappearance of a childhood experience that has beenrepressed.

Fraley, Davis, andShaver 1998

CP used by adults with dismissive attachment style who become anxious or threatened bychild’s emotional needs.

Cramer and Kelly 2010 CP is used as a defense mechanism of denial because child had to deny the pain and anger. Soas a parent, the pain of CP is denied.

Cramer and Kelly 2010 Parents project, as a defense mechanism, their negative view of self onto their children. CP isthen used to discipline that child, perceived to be difficult.

20 G. W. HOLDEN

target or distracter categories. Two samples of mothers of 2- to 3-year-old childrenparticipated. The researchers determined that implicit attitudes were uniquely useful inpredicting both reported and observed child-rearing behavior and CP reports.Furthermore, the implicit measure of CP was more predictive of two maternal measuresthan were explicit attitudes.

Assessment of the research into parental determinants of CP

As this review has summarized, there is now a sizable literature documenting the manypredictors of CP, ranging from cultural to conscious to unconscious. Nevertheless, therecontinue to be some significant gaps in our understanding of these determinants. One gap,as suggested above, is the paucity of research into the unconscious determinants. A secondsignificant gap in the literature concerns details about the specific contextual and parentalvariables that elicit spanking. Although the types of child transgressions that can result inCP have been studied (e.g., Catron and Masters 1993; Holden, Coleman, and Schmidt1995), most investigations into determinants simply assess parental reports on surveysabout whether they do or do not spank, or how often they spank, without examining thebehavioral context.

One exception was an investigation utilizing home audio-recordings to examine in vivoCPincidents (Holden, Williamson, and Holland 2014). Thirty-three mothers wore digital audiorecorders on their arms while interacting with their toddlers or preschoolers in their homesfor up to five evenings. A total of forty-one CP incidents were discovered on the recordingsfrom fifteen of the families. The recordings provided rich information about the immediateand situational determinants that surrounded these occurences. Mothers (as well as severalfathers and one grandmother) spanked or slapped their children for mundane misdeeds. Theoffenses included being noncompliant to maternal instructions or reprimands, suckingfingers, or eating improperly. As mentioned above, negative emotion was a common attributeof spankers: coders rated mothers as being angry in 49% of the incidents.

The recordings also provided unique information regarding the frequency of spankings.Among the mothers who used CP, the median rate was .22 times per hour (SD = .16), witha range of .06 per hour to 1.43 per hour. This audio-recording study is noteworthy becauseit relied on a very different methodology than what is generally used. Rather than simplysurveying parents’ self-reports about their disciplinary practices or their attitudes towardCP, the Holden, Williamson, and Holland (2014) investigation used audio recording data.

The study, besides providing information about determinants, generated some alarm-ing results with regard to the rate of how frequently children were struck. Although lessthan half of the mothers spanked, among those who did, the median frequency of use wasonce every five hours. The mother who struck her child most frequently was heard tocarry this out three times in a span of a little over two hours. This study requiresreplication and should be extended to a larger, more representative sample, but theseinitial results register concern. Assuming a 3-year-child is sleeping 12 hours at night,84 hours of interaction time are at hand. If the median rate of CP is extrapolated to an 84-hour week, then the child who experiences the average number of spankings was 16.8times per week or 873 times over the course of one year!

These rates provide dramatically different data from the rates based on self-reports,which typically query parents about whether spanking occurred at all and if so, the

THE PSYCHOANALYTIC STUDY OF THE CHILD 21

frequency of spankings per week (e.g., Holden, Miller, and Harris 1999); per month (e.g.,Barkin et al. 2007), or even per year (e.g., Zolotor et al. 2011b). As a way of comparison,three studies that used self-reports arrived at substantially lower frequencies of CP thanthe rate determined based on the audio-recordings. One study found that the mothersreported spanking their children only 3.1 times/week (Giles-Sims et al. 2005). A secondstudy that relied on a large, nationally represented dataset of 2,500 low-income families,also found low self-reported rates of spanking: The average reported frequency of spank-ing was 2.62/week (Berlin et al. 2009). A third example, from a sample of almost 7,000families, resulted in a rate of only .34/week (Grogan-Kaylor 2005). Thus, the frequencydiffers dramatically based on the assessment method. In a similar way, by collectingcontextual information regarding CP incidents, evidence of unconscious motives ismore likely to emerge.

Future research directions and conclusions

Harsh punishment in general, and CP in particular has multiple determinants. A largebody of research has shed light on more than 18 variables that predict CP use. Most ofthese fall into the categories of social cultural, familial, child, or parental. With regard toparental variables, the empirical studies of conscious components have received consider-able attention. Unconscious influences, in the form of implicit attitudes, are only begin-ning to be explored. However, psychoanalytically-informed scholars have identifiednumerous possible motives underpinning the use of physical punishment; these havenot yet been empirically studied. In addition to identifying them, research is neededinto how unconscious motives can interact with conscious ones. Can conscious variablescompensate or buffer unconscious motives? What is the connective tissue between them?

Although investigators prefer to create narrow, discrete categories and focus theirinvestigations on one domain at a time, it is likely that predictors of cognitions, negativeaffect, and the unconscious are interrelated. For example, it has been shown repeatedlythat attributions of child intention can result in parents feeling angry (Dix 1991; Slep andO’Leary 1998). Similarly, Crouch et al. (2017) found that authoritarian beliefs, hostileattributions about children, and negative affect were all related to harsh parenting prac-tices. Furthermore, using home observations and parental reports to examine predictors ofexcessive punishment, Greenwald et al. (1997) demonstrate that stress, parental irritability,child coerciveness and parent discipline beliefs all contribute to punitive parenting.Though no study has linked cognitions, negative affect, and unconscious thoughts toCP, it is likely that in many cases, they are interacting.

In addition to the need for recognizing the interrelations between these three sets ofwithin-individual determinants, it is also likely that other variables moderate the relations.For example, how these variables interrelate may differ for mothers and fathers. As a casein point, one study found that mothers’ positive CP attitudes were predicted by both theirsocioeconomic status and their disciplinary practices. However, for fathers, it was theperceived harshness of their own childhood disciplinary experiences, as well as theirsocioeconomic status, that predicted their attitudes (Lunkenheimer et al. 2006).

Besides refining our grasp of the variables that determine the use of CP, another subjectthat is ripe for research is the determinants of nonviolent disciplinary practices. Why dosome parents embrace the approach while other parents view it with disdain? Depending

22 G. W. HOLDEN

on the age of the child, parents have an arsenal of potential age-appropriate disciplinary.For infants and toddlers, these include “child-proofing” the environment and other formsof straightforward proactive parenting, such as redirecting a child’s attention. However, aschildren’s cognitive abilities develop, some of those techniques are no longer effective.Consequently, parents need to adopt other non-punitive disciplinary strategies, such asproviding clear rules and expectations, allowing for natural consequences, ignoring, andrewarding positive behaviors (e.g., Durrant 2016). When children become school age andmove into adolescence, the types of parental responses must shift once again to provideage-appropriate guidance and caring reactions to troublesome behaviors (e.g., Arnall 2010;Ateah, Secco, and Woodgate 2003). Research is needed into the variables that predictwhich parents will readily adopt age-appropriate disciplinary strategies.

To return to the question raised at the beginning of this paper, there are a multitude ofpredictors which operate in concert to determine whether parents hit their children. If thehome recordings of family interactions recorded by Holden, Williamson, and Holland(2014) are representative of the larger sample of parents who use CP, this disciplinarybehavior is used frequently in some families. It represents a serious problem that candamage a child’s social, emotional, and cognitive development as well as the quality offamily relationships (Gershoff et al. 2018). It is clear that further work is needed inunderstanding parenting determinants in general and particularly unconscious ones.Such information will serve to help develop appropriate interventions and preventiveefforts necessary so that parents will forsake CP and other harsh punishments.

Note1. The challenging – and thorny–problem of assessing the accuracy of retrospective memories was

not considered in this study. For example, see Bell and Bell (2018).

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

George W. Holden, Ph.D. is Professor and Chair of the Psychology Department at SouthernMethodist University in Dallas, TX. Holden’s research interests are in the area of parent-childrelationships with a focus on discipline and parental social cognition. He is the author of numerousscientific articles and chapters, as well as the author or editor of five books. Holden is a fellow of theAmerican Psychological Society (APS) and a member of four other societies, including the Societyfor Research in Human Development (SRHD), where he served as president. He has won severalawards, including in 2018, the Distinguished Career Award from the International Society for thePrevention of Child Abuse and Neglect. He is the co-founder and president of the U.S. Alliance toEnd the Hitting of Children.

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