Parenting Practices among DepressedMothers in the Child Welf.docx
Holden study
1. Journal of Family Psychology
Eavesdropping on the Family: A Pilot Investigation of
Corporal Punishment in the Home
George W. Holden, Paul A. Williamson, and Grant W. O. Holland
Online First Publication, April 14, 2014. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036370
CITATION
Holden, G. W., Williamson, P. A., & Holland, G. W. O. (2014, April 14). Eavesdropping on the
Family: A Pilot Investigation of Corporal Punishment in the Home. Journal of Family
Psychology. Advance online publication. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036370
3. cates also point out that some studies “lump together” all types of
corporal punishment, thereby conflating the effects of abusive
practices with “normative” spanking or “customary” spanking.
They hold that the effects of spanking depend on how it is used,
and if used appropriately, it can be an effective form of power
assertion (Baumrind, 1997, 2012).
Audio recordings of family conflicts can help to fill in a major gap
in the CP literature—that of the immediate and concomitant conse-
quences of CP (Benjet & Kazdin, 2003). Despite the hundreds of
studies investigating the associations between CP and child behavior,
there continues to be a paucity of information about what transpires
before, during, and immediately after disciplinary incidents involving
CP. As a result, it is impossible to evaluate the validity of proponents’
assertions that a) there is a “customary” form of CP, b) that customary
CP follows suggested guidelines, and c) that this form of CP is
effective for disciplining children. Assessing the validity of these
assertions requires naturalistic observations.
To date, observations of parents engaging in CP are extremely
rare. Brown (1979) observed a total of 20 “hitting or physical
force” responses in a shopping mall. In a study of verbal aggres-
sion, Davis (1996) reported that he observed parents hitting their
children in public, backing up threats of hitting about one third of
the time. The Home Observation for the Measurement of the
Environment (e.g., Bradley, Corwyn, McAdoo, & Garcia Coll,
2001) measures CP simply as present or absent while the inter-
viewer is present. Recently, Stansbury, Haley, Lee and Brophy-
Herb (2012) observed “negative touches” (slapping, pinching,
hitting, or threatening to hit) in response to noncompliance in
public settings. In 23% of the incidents, children received negative
touches. The reports of these observational studies do not provide
enough information to determine whether the parents followed
prescribed recommendations or whether the CP was effective in
the immediate context. Nor do they shed light on the proximal
determinants of CP, such as the eliciting misdeed or parental affect
(Ateah & Durrant, 2005).
In the present study, we use home observations to examine the
use of CP and to assess its immediate impact on children’s behav-
ior. We evaluate how it is used in light of “best practices” guide-
lines provided by proponents. Seven guidelines were identified: a)
it should be used infrequently; b) it should be used selectively, for
serious misbehaviors, such as aggression; c) it should be used as a
last resort; d) it should be administered calmly, not in anger; e) it
should consist of no more than two hits; f) the child should be
struck on the buttocks; and f) it should be painful. These guide-
lines, gleaned by Vittrup, Holden, and Buck (2006), came from
five sources (e.g., Dobson, 1992; Rosemond, 1994; Trumbull &
Ravenel, 1998).
In sum, we sought to explore whether home audio recordings could
reveal new information about CP use in the home and whether it
adhered to the parameters recommended by proponents of the disci-
plinary technique. We also investigated the underlying assumption of
proponents that CP is effective at curtailing subsequent misbehavior.
Finally, we addressed a methodological question: Do self-reports
accurately reflect the observed frequency of CP?
Method
The study complied with the APA’s ethical principles and was
approved by the university’s IRB committee.
Participants
Participants were recruited using flyers distributed to English-
speaking mothers of 2- to 5-year-old children at daycare and Head
Start centers in a large southwestern city. A total of 56 potential
participants contacted the investigators. Only the mothers who
reported, in a phone screen about disciplinary practices, that they
yelled in anger at least twice a week (the original study focus) were
invited to participate. Fourteen mothers did not meet this criterion.
In addition, seven mothers dropped out. Attrition analyses on the
screening data showed the drop-outs did not differ (race/ethnicity,
number of children, or frequency of spanking) from the partici-
pants.
Thirty-five mothers of 2- to 5-year-old children participated.
Audio recordings from two families were insufficiently intelligible
to use. In the final sample of 33 families, the target children
averaged 46.0 months of age (SD ϭ 11.8, range 24 to 68); 13 were
female. The median number of siblings was one (range 0 to 3). The
mothers averaged 33.8 years old (SD ϭ 5.8, range 23 to 46), most
were married (82.1%), and self-reported as white (60.7%), African
American (25.0%), or Hispanic (10.7%). The mothers were em-
ployed full-time outside the home (60.7%), worked part-time
(17.9%), were homemakers (14.3%), or were students (3.6%). One
third of the mothers (32.1%) had attended some college or voca-
tional school, another third (32.1%) were college graduates, and
28.6% had advanced degrees or training.
Fathers’ average age was 35.7 years (SD ϭ 4.5) and most (91%)
were employed full time. Their education ranged from high school
(14%) to graduate or professional school (24%). Annual family
income included less than $40,000 (28.6%), between $40,000 and
$79,999 (32.2%), $80,000 or more (39.2%).
Measures
Audio recordings. Mothers, visited at their homes, were
given an Olympus DS-50 digital voice recorder to wear, in a sport
pouch, on the upper arm. They were instructed to turn on the
recorder upon returning home from work (or at 5:00 p.m.) and turn
it off once their child fell asleep. The first 10 participants were
asked to make recordings on four consecutive days; the remaining
participants were asked to record six consecutive days. This pro-
cedure resulted in an average of 12.95 hrs of recordings per family
(SD ϭ 6.16, range 2.1 to 25.5). Most (94%) of the mothers
complied with the number of recordings requested, though only
62% of the recordings continued all the way through bedtime.
When the recordings were completed, a researcher returned to the
home to collect the audio recorder and questionnaires. Mothers
received $120 for their efforts.
The first step in coding required identifying the CP incidents. In
51% of the incidents, the sound of the child being slapped or
spanked was clearly discernible and supported by contextual cues,
such as warnings of or justifications for the hit. In 44% of the
incidents, the sound of CP was ambiguous, but the contextual cues
(mother’s warning of impending CP, child’s cries) provided sup-
porting evidence. In two cases (5%), there was no audible sound of
CP but clear explicit contextual information, such as the child
pleading, “Stop hitting me.” Two raters independently coded 30%
of the recordings. The interrater reliability, computed by agree-
ments over agreements and disagreements, was .87, with a Co-
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2 HOLDEN, WILLIAMSON, AND HOLLAND
4. hen’s kappa () of .77. Disagreements for all codes were discussed
and settled by consensus.
The second step involved a detailed analysis by two coders of
each incident relating to the seven guidelines. However, given that
we were relying on audio data, the location on the body as to where
the child was struck could not be determined. Therefore, that
guideline was not evaluated. We derived the dependent variables
for the other six guidelines in the following ways:
CP should be used infrequently. To measure the frequency
of CP use, we calculated the rate of CP per hour of recording.
Because only mothers wore the recorders, this analysis was limited
to them. The interrater reliability was .87, ϭ .77.
CP should be used selectively, for serious behaviors. To
assess the types of behaviors eliciting CP, we coded the child
transgressions into five categories: a) social convention (e.g., per-
sonal untidiness or uncleanliness, poor manners); b) aggression
(verbal or physical acts that could hurt someone); c) rights viola-
tion (e.g., taking someone’s property; intruding on other’s personal
space); d) destruction (intentional acts that could damage objects);
e) prudential rule violation (engaging in a safety risk such as
touching a stove). The first four categories came from Dunn and
Munn (1987). All but two of the CP incidents could be coded into
one of these categories. The reliability was .73, ϭ .58.
CP should be used as a last resort. This guideline was
operationalized in two ways. First, we measured the latency in
seconds from the onset of the child’s infraction until the CP. The
intraclass correlation between the two raters was .71. Second, we
summed the number of responses to the transgression prior to the
first hit. The agreement was .86; ICC ϭ .44.
CP should not be used in anger. We assessed, on a dichot-
omous code, the presence of parental negative affect when the CP
was delivered. Negative affect occurred if the volume of the
utterance increased, the tone of voice indicated aggravation or
anger, and/or the presence of negative verbalizations (e.g., threats).
The interrater reliability was M ϭ .73, ϭ .46.
The CP should consist of no more than two hits. Based on
the sound or verbal comments, we counted the number of slaps/
spanks. The reliability was very high, ICC ϭ .99.
The hit should be painful. We operationalized the degree of
pain experienced by the child on a 4-point distress scale (0 ϭ no
audible response; 1 ϭ minimal but audible, such as whimpering;
2 ϭ moderate, may include some crying or verbal protest; 3 ϭ
strong, such as loud crying). The interrater reliability was .71, ϭ
.53.
“Appropriate” CP is effective. Effectiveness of CP was op-
erationalized as whether a new conflict occurred within 10 min of
the CP. The agreement (within 5 s) was .90, ϭ .78.
Questionnaires
To assess the correspondence between self-reported CP and
observed frequency of CP, we administered two questionnaires.
Each mother completed the PRCM twice: once at the time of
screening (Time 1) and once at home during the period when
recordings were being made (Time 2). The PSDQ was only filled
out at Time 2.
Parental Responses to Child Misbehavior (PRCM). The
PRCM (Holden et al., 1995) asks parents how frequently, in an
average week, they use particular disciplinary responses, rated on
7-point scales (0 ϭ Never; 1 ϭ less than once; 2 ϭ 1–2 times; 3 ϭ
3–4 times; 4 ϭ 5–6 times; 5 ϭ 7–8 times; 6 ϭ 9 or more times).
The original PRCM has good test–retest reliability, internal con-
sistency, and validity (e.g., Holden et al., 1995; Vittrup et al.,
2006). The original PRCM contained only one item referring to CP
(“spank/slap”). For the present study, we revised that item to
“spank with hand” and added three more CP items: “spank with an
object,” “slap on the child’s hand,” and “slap on the child’s face.”
However, the last item lowered the internal consistency of the new
four-item CP subscale. Consequently we removed it. The final
3-item PRCM-CP subscale correlated strongly across Time 1 and
Time 2 (r ϭ .75, p Ͻ .001), but was only moderately internally
consistent (␣Time 1 ϭ .52, ␣Time 2 ϭ .61).
Parenting Styles and Dimensions Questionnaire (PSDQ).
The PSDQ (Robinson, Mandleco, Olsen, & Hart, 1995) is a
commonly used 62-item measure. For the purposes of this study
we report only on the six-item CP subscale (e.g., “I spank when
our child is disobedient”), rated on a 5-point frequency scale (1 ϭ
Never; 5 ϭ Always), with an ␣ of .70 in this sample.
Results
CP Incidents
A total of 41 CP incidents were heard in 15 of the 33 families
(45% of the sample). The distribution of incidents within these
families ranged widely. Six families each contributed one incident,
four families had two incidents, one family had three incidents,
two families had four incidents, one family had six incidents, and
the last family had 10 incidents. Only mothers used CP in nine
families, only fathers in three families, both parents in two fami-
lies, and mother and grandmother in one family. (For convenience,
we will refer to all these individuals as “parents.”)
Eighteen children (11 boys) received CP. Their median age was
48 months (range 7 months to 6 years). Twelve mothers accounted
for 32 incidents, five fathers for seven incidents, and one grand-
mother for two incidents. Because some families contained mul-
tiple children and two adults, we calculated the total number of
parent–child dyads involved. The incidents involved 22 different
parent–child dyads. Sixteen of the parent–child dyads had one
incident, one dyad experienced two incidents, two dyads had three,
and one dyad each contributed four, five, and 10 incidents. Three
children were hit by both their parents, and three parents hit two
children.
The incidents were more frequent in the first three evenings (six,
11, & 10 incidents, respectively) than in the last three (six, one, &
seven, respectively).
Evaluating CP Incidents in Light of Proponents’
Guidelines
Next we summarize the correspondence between the audio data
and the six guidelines.
CP should be used infrequently. The median rate was .22/hr
(SD ϭ .16) with a low of .06 per hr (based on one incident for
17.95 hrs) to a high of 1.43/hr (three incidents from 2.1 hrs).
CP should be used selectively, for serious behaviors. To
evaluate selectivity in use, we examined the eliciting misbehavior.
In 40 of the 41 incidents we identified the misdeed or source of the
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3EAVESDROPPING ON THE FAMILY
5. conflict. Noncompliance was the proximate cause in 90% of the
incidents. Typically, this noncompliance consisted of the child
ignoring or resisting parental instruction or command (“Come
here!”). The immediate cause of the remaining four incidents was
aggression or breaking a standing rule (resulting in CP without
warning).
The misdeed that precipitated the noncompliance was coded
into the five behavioral domains. Seventy-four percent of the
transgressions involved breaking social conventions. The offend-
ing misbehaviors consisted of such actions as sucking fingers,
eating improperly, getting out of a chair, and going outside without
permission. The next most frequent category (10%) was acts of
aggression, including the child hitting someone or throwing an
object at the parent. Rights-related misdeeds occurred in 7.5% of
the incidents. The remaining misdeeds were prudential (5%) or
destructive (2.5%).
CP should be used as a last resort. On average, parents tried
one disciplinary response before the CP (M ϭ 1.1, SD ϭ .97, range
0 to 3). Most commonly, the initial reaction was a prohibition (e.g.,
“Stop it!”). The elapsed time from the onset of a conflict to
administration of the CP averaged less than 30 s (M ϭ 26.5, SD ϭ
67.31, range 0 to 416).
CP should not be used in anger. In 49% of the incidents,
parents expressed negative affect while delivering the CP.
The CP should consist of no more than two hits. Only one
hit was audible in 83% of the incidents. In three cases (7.3%), two hits
were heard. There was one incident each with 3, 5, 6, and 11 hits. The
mean number of hits was 1.59 (SD ϭ 1.83).
The hit should be painful. The modal child distress rating
was moderate (48.8%), followed by minimal (29.3%), and strong
negative reaction (9.8%). No audible child reaction was heard in
12.2% of the incidents. The mean distress rating was 1.56 (SD ϭ
.84).
Finally, to gauge the effectiveness of CP, we coded whether the child
misbehaved during the immediate 10 min that followed the CP. In 30
of the 41 CP incidents (73%), the children engaged in the same or
another misbehavior within that time period.
To supplement these descriptive statistics, we conducted multi-
level analyses in an effort to account for nonindependence of
observations. Those analyses did not differ substantially from the
results presented here, so are not reported (available from the first
author).
Correspondence Between the Audio and
Questionnaire Data
We examined the correspondence between the two forms of data
in two ways. The correlation between the CP subscale on the
PRCM (T1) and the actual number of CP incidents was not
significant, r ϭ .21, p ϭ .23. However, when using the CP
subscale from the Time 2 (r[30] ϭ .76, p Ͻ .001 with T1), the
correlation increased to r ϭ .54, p Ͻ .001. That can be accounted
for by the tendency for mothers to report more CP at Time 2 (M ϭ
2.87) than at Time 1 (M ϭ 2.33), paired t(29) ϭ 1.44, p ϭ .16. The
CP subscale from the PSDQ survey also correlated significantly
with incidents, r ϭ .47, p Ͻ .001, as well as with the PRCM
subscale (rTime 1 ϭ .58, rTime 2 ϭ .68, ps Ͻ .001). When examining
reports of CP dichotomously (spank vs. no spank) based on
whether mothers reported they used CP at least 1–2 times per week
on the PRCM (T2), reports and behavior showed good correspon-
dence, 2
(1) ϭ 11.79, p ϭ .001. Seventeen mothers reported they
did not use CP (or did so less than once/week) and were not heard
to use CP. Nine mothers who reported they did use CP, indeed
used it. Four mothers reported they did use CP but were not heard
to; two mothers reported they did not use CP but used it.
Discussion
The use of audio recorders proved to be a highly effective
technique to study the moment-to-moment interactions sur-
rounding conflict in the home. The method afforded new data
about how “customary” CP was being used in the home—at
least by this small sample of parents. The audio recordings
allowed us to assess CP use in the home and examine several
new variables related to the CP use that had not been previously
reported in the literature. The recordings revealed CP occurred,
on average, just 30 s after the onset of a conflict and with little
warning. These conflicts typically resulted from the violation of a
social convention. Parents, clearly angry in half the cases, typically
hit their children once or twice per incident. Within 10 min of the
physical discipline, in 73% of the events examined, children mis-
behaved again. The recordings revealed that CP was frequently not
being used in the ways that advocates of the disciplinary technique
recommended.
Three caveats about generalizability are in order. First, this
small self-selected sample of parents was screened for yelling and
the mothers are more educated than the general population. It is
possible these parents used more frequent, harsher disciplinary
practices than would be found in a more representative sample. In
addition, the recordings were made during the most stressful time
period of the day, when emotional spillover from prior events are
likely and children are most at-risk for CP (Holden et al., 1995;
Matjasko & Feldman, 2006). Therefore, the observed rates of CP
would likely be lower if recordings had been made at other times
of the day. Third, CP was heard in only 22 parent–child dyads
from 15 families. Evidently, this study should be considered a pilot
effort and a larger, more representative sample is needed.
Of the parents who used CP, their behavior commonly violated
three of the six “use” guidelines examined: infrequent, serious
misbehavior, and last resort. Among the 12 mothers who engaged
in CP, the median rate was once every 6.3 hrs of interactions. In
about three-quarters of the incidents, parents hit their children for
extraordinarily mundane social convention offenses, rather than
serious infractions, such as rights or prudential violations (Dunn &
Munn, 1987). Most poignantly, one child was slapped for turning
pages of a storybook. Parents used CP as their second, not last,
resort, on average just half a minute after the conflict began.
With only a few exceptions, parents were abiding with one of
the guidelines—hitting only once or twice. The data were equiv-
ocal for the last two guidelines. Although the guidelines call for
calmly metering out punishment, parents were rated as angry in
about half of the incidents. Consequently, these data suggest that
the role of negative emotion, while present in many incidents,
should not be exaggerated as a determinant (Ateah & Durrant,
2005). The final guideline (making CP painful) was indirectly
assessed with a rating how upset the child sounded. In just over
half of the cases, the children were heard to be at least moderately
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4 HOLDEN, WILLIAMSON, AND HOLLAND
6. upset after the CP. Videos would provide better assessments of
children’s emotional response.
When all six guidelines are considered together in one incident,
it is clear that parents were rarely, if ever, using CP “appropri-
ately.” The recordings reveal that most parents were responding
either impulsively and/or emotionally, rather than instrumentally
and intentionally (Benjet & Kazdin, 2003). Impulsivity may have
attenuated the correlation between self-reports of CP and observed
incidents. Nevertheless, at Time 2, when the mothers were some-
what more forthcoming about their CP behavior, the 2
test was
significant for the reports of and overheard CP incidents, matching
in 81% of the cases. Most of the disagreements (12%) involved
mothers who reported they used CP but were not heard to. This
discrepancy is not surprising given the recordings averaged about
13 hrs over four to six days and mothers were reporting on
behavior across an average week. We conclude that the Time 2
reports provided a reasonably valid assessment for the presence
(but not frequency) of CP behavior in the mothers’ repertoire.
A unique finding that must be considered preliminary because
of the sample size is that the rate of CP observed far exceeds prior
estimations or previously published finding. For example, Amer-
ican parents of 2-year-old children reported they spanked or
slapped a mean of 18 times per year (Straus & Stewart, 1999).
Here, mothers at the median frequency rate would be striking their
children 18 times within one week! Larzelere (2000) concluded
that detrimental outcomes can occur when parents are spanking
one to three times a week. Every single parent who used CP in this
study was at or above that threshold.
In the course of investigating customary CP in situ, most of
the incidents were fleeting and unremarkable. However, coders
were alarmed when hearing a mother hit her child 11 times in
a row, the severe emotional distress reaction from four children,
and the 7-month-old infant who was hit. These incidents provide
a peek into how a disciplinary incident could escalate whereby a
young child could be inadvertently injured while being punished or
a repeatedly distressed child could be emotionally affected. Al-
though prospanking advocates may acknowledge these incidents
as inappropriate uses of CP, evidence indicates that mothers who
report their child gets spanked are also more likely to report
physical abuse of that child (Zolotor, Theodore, Chang, Berkoff, &
Runyan, 2008).
Despite the novel results, both the audio-recording method and
the study have limitations. The audio method was limited by
self-selection into the study; although it was not assessed, many
families may find audio recordings of home interactions far too
intrusive of their privacy to give consent. Additionally, families
who did not adhere to instructions and failed to record entire
evenings of interactions limited the scope of audio recordings.
There is also the obvious limitation that the recordings do not
capture nonverbal information, so we could not observe where the
children were hit nor their physical reactions. Finally, the audio-
recording approach is extremely time intensive, both for data
collection and coding.
Our investigation into naturally occurring CP also has some
notable limitations. Foremost, the small, selective sample of fam-
ilies contributed differing numbers of CP incidents, based on a
differing number of hours of recordings. We also do not know the
extent to which parents were reactive to the method and modified
their typical behavior (Gardner, 2000). However, given that the CP
incidents were recorded as soon as the very first night, we do not
think reactivity was a serious problem. In this report, we do not
compare CP with other disciplinary practices; such a comparison is
in progress.
Because of the limitations, the results of this study should be
regarded as preliminary. Nevertheless, advocates of CP as a dis-
ciplinary technique believe that if used appropriately, it is an
effective technique. What these data indicate is that it is not
effective in terminating misbehavior over as short a time period as
10 minutes. Moreover, “customary” CP does not appear to be used
“prudently” (Baumrind, 1997) as it falls far short of conforming to
the recommended guidelines. The study illustrates that direct ob-
servations of the family, through the use of audio recordings, is a
feasible method and can provide novel data. As this pilot effort
illustrates, the method can shed light on important family interac-
tions, such as whether parental use of CP is maligned by opponents
or “misused” by parents in the home.
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Received July 29, 2013
Revision received February 6, 2014
Accepted February 11, 2014 Ⅲ
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6 HOLDEN, WILLIAMSON, AND HOLLAND
