Corporal punishment is effective in the short-term, but other alternatives, based more on learning theory, are more effective in long-term behavioural modification. The media, such as Time magazine, discusses the issue of corporal punishment using emotive language and vague claims, as opposed to empirical evidence and references to surveys. Therefore, this essay seeks to discuss the effectiveness of corporal punishment, and learning theory alternatives, through analysing research studies and credited analyses.
Corporal punishment can be defined as administering mild to moderate physical punishment, which causes mild pain or discomfort, in order to modify an undesirable behaviour (Straus, 1994). Corporal punishment encourages passive learning of desired behaviours, and may therefore be considered, in part, classical conditioning. Classical conditioning is part of the behavioural theory, and it involves learning a new behaviour, through association. Stimuli are displayed together, in order to create a new, learned response. Operant conditioning changes behaviour by using reinforcement and punishment, in order to encourage, or discourage, certain behaviours (Lilienfeld et. al., 2012).
While punishment, reinforcement and corporal punishment all seek to modify behaviour, corporal punishment differs from reinforcement. Positive reinforcement refers to adding something pleasant to the child’s environment in order to encourage a behaviour, while negative reinforcement refers to removing an unpleasant stimulus in order to discourage a behaviour. Negative punishment differs in that it refers to the removal of a positive stimulus. Corporal punishment is a type of positive punishment, which refers to adding an unpleasant stimulus to the chil...
... middle of paper ...
...from their children. This shows that parenting without corporal punishment has the potential to promote mental health. However, contamination of control groups, lack of direct cause and effect (unaware of other factors) and other factors make certain aspects of this study questionable, but it is still soundly conducted and its results are valid (Stewart-Brown et. al, 2004).
From this, it can be concluded that learning theory based alternatives, such as rewarding desirable behaviour, removal of privileges and verbal reprimands, are effective in modifying children’s behaviour. Corporal punishment, while effective in the short-term, is not an effective long-term method, and can have negative effects on the future discipline of children. Therefore, parents should embrace the alternative methods of discipline, in order to raise healthy, well-adjusted members of society.
There is a point raised by the author on the article “Spanking children isn’t abusing them” that children in residential schools had horrible and often fatal beatings (2015). Furthermore, while reading “Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review” Gershoff asserts, “Behaviors that do not result in significant physical injury (e.g., spank, slap) are considered corporal punishment, whereas behav- iors that risk injury (e.g., punching, kicking, burning) are consid- ered physical abuse. ” (2002) As it was stated on the previous point, reasonable force has its limits, and limits the parent and care givers to discipline the child without degrading them or causing physical or psychological harm.
Spanking is the most effective form of discipline when a child knows doing something is wrong, but the child does it anyway. A child who is properly disciplined through spanking is being taught how to control her or his impulses and how to deal with all types of authorities in future environments. Parents can control their child’s future
Nonetheless, considers spanking an outcome with dysfunctional mental and physical health issues that roots from often harsh spankings (Kazdin and Benjet, 2003). If parents were set to believe corporal punishment leads to the development of mental issues or physical aggression with peers solving conflicts (Taylor et al.,2016). If the world knew what corporal punishment actually does parents would seek a different approach. Most parents think the views of their children is a reflection of how they are being raised, which supports why this article argument is stronger. Another reason this article is stronger argument is because of how severe the logical fallacies are with in “Spanking and Children’s Externalizing Behavior Across the First Decade of Life:” Even so, the article did provide some strong points as well by recognizing the limitations the studies bring with parents by relying on their responses to general questions about spanking.
...orce the good behaviour with rewards and decrease the likelihood of negative behaviour being repeated. The structured discipline of both parents and teachers help the child to appreciate that good behaviour is much more beneficial than bad behaviour but without this structure in one or both of these settings, could lead to the child not understanding, leading to it being much more difficult to correct behaviour that isn't wanted without resorting to drastic measures of physical or psychological punishment that would do more harm than good. Further research into helping the children in these sort of circumstances would be much more beneficial to the topic of child behaviour and punishment.
Finally, we need to know more about the personal resources of parents that can lessen the incidence of spanking. It is found that spanking sharply decreases as the parent ages. Despite ideological motivations, parents can and should be trained to understand alternative strategies of discipline (Day 93).
As we grow a foundation of rules are applied to us to help guide our behavior in the choices we make as we age. A certain modification is exerted, and we learn what we want by having our consequences corrected due to this behavior. A choice to spank a child, slap, pinch, hit with an object nearby, or make them eat unpleasant substances to curb their behavior are types of physical punishment. Surveys have documented majority of parents whom were physically punished growing up to punished their own children as they were. Research also indicates short-term consequences within a child from being physically punished which may cause the child to begin bullying other children, aggressiveness is shown, behavioral problems, enduring low self-esteem, becoming petrified of their own parents, and believing it is okay to lay a hand on another. The abuse of physical punishment can get a person arrested with a jail sentence, loss of custody, and in extreme cases horrifying injuries cause death to an individual (“Physical Punishment”, 2012). Two-thirds of Americans still approve of spanking their children, even after studies have shown this type of physical punishment can lead to increased aggression, antisocial behavior, physical injury and mental health problems for children (Smith,
Often this approach to disciplining has resulted in two consequences, one is where the child becomes more generous and is able to obey what he or she has been told, or the other which more often results in children developing a sense of suffering and wish to change. I believe that sometimes parents are caught in a situation when children are annoyed by all boundaries of discipline and spanking is the only actual answer. Therefore, it is essential to do spanking for child discipline since it is the important element of successful parenting. Parents often come through situations where young children often disrupt their parents by ignoring the realism of the verdict they create. In this case, some parents may choose to physically punish their children and show their frustration.
However, if we look in the case that if we are a life coach and working with a client who wants to stop biting her fingernails. Operant conditioning could be a solution to her problem; one way to how we resolve it out could be to adopt the positive punishment. Every time she tries to bite her fingernails, we oblige her to put a pair of glove on her hands; thus she could not bite her nail again, and after times of trying to reach her fingernails she would ended up having the pressure to carry multilayers of
Since the mid-1950s, parents and psychologists have been battling over the topic concerning corporal punishment. The parents were raised in homes where corporal punishment was used, and they feel that it was a successful technique that raised them well. Psychologists, on the other hand, conducted research; a lot of which was biased and false, telling parents that corporal punishment was bad for their children. After years of researching and studying the effects of corporal punishment, the most popular theories stating that it is a harmful technique, were proven wrong. Corporal punishment is found to be a good technique in the right situations, with the right motives, and using the correct tools.
This essay will discuss whether it is thought that punishment is effective and whether it is currently thought to work, additionally it will examine the best ways to change a child’s behaviour in terms of positive and negative reinforcements. The issue of child punishment has received considerable critical attention within many cultures. Punishment towards children can be argued to be a very controversial area. It is argued that many people have been brought up with distinctive beliefs about punishments toward a child. A child’s upbringing is argued by many researchers to be key to how they will go on to treat their own children in the future. This can surely be argued to be a negative effect of physical punishment. It is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the effects of what severe punishment may have on a child. Later convictions of violence and the evidence of damaging effects on well-being, corporal punishment has on children is overwhelming. However, it is not ingrained that corporal punishment is definitely damaging. There is also sufficient evidence to corporal punishment being an effective form of discipline, if used appropriately. It is thought that corporal punishment helps parents retain control over their children’s behaviour. This essay will consider the various forms of punishment, such as physical punishments and whether they are considered to work. This is essay will also consider effective ways of changing a child’s behaviour including the use of classical and operant conditioning and studies that support the theories and how they can be applied to real life. Classical conditioning for example uses learning through association, memory prompts the person to associate an object/ sound to a certain behaviour. ...
Negative reinforcement is removing something that is not enjoyable as the result of the behavior that is acceptable example is in Skinners box experiment, a loud noise continuously rang until the rat did what Skinner wanted the rat to do (Cervone, Pervin, Cervone, & Professor of Psychology Lawrence A Pervin, 2013). Positive punishment is used to eliminate a certain behavior and is giving something unenjoyable after the behavior. Negative punishment is used to eliminate a behavior and eliminating something you enjoy after the
“It hurts and it’s painful inside – it’s like breaking your bones; it’s loud and sore, and it stings; it feels like you’ve been adopted or something and you’re not part of their family; you feel like you don’t like your parents anymore; you feel upset because they are hurting you, and you love them so much, and then all of a sudden they hit you and you feel as though they don’t care about you” (Pritchard 9). These are the feelings of those juveniles who suffer from corporal punishment. Corporal punishment has been one of the main topics of research in Psychology in last few decades. Although people had believed, “Spare the rod and spoil the child” but in the present age of science, research has revealed that the corporal punishment causes more harm to the children instead of having a positive effect on them. According to UNICEF, “Corporal punishment is actually the use of physical measures that causes pain but no wounds, as a means of enforcing discipline” (1). It includes spanking, squeezing, slapping, pushing and hitting by hand or with some other instruments like belts etc. But it is different from physical abuse in which punishment result in wounds and the objective is different from teaching the discipline. Although Corporal punishment is considered to be a mode of teaching discipline and expeditious acquiescence, however, it leads to the disruption of parent-child relationship, poor mental health of juveniles, moral internalization along with their anti-social and aggressive behaviour and it is against the morality of humans.
Corporal punishment is the physical disciplinary method used by parents, teachers, and school administrators in an effort to correct a child’s undesirable behaviors. The use of physical force is one that is often times controversial and usually evokes very strong reactions. These feelings surface, and opposing views clash, when scandals surrounding corporal punishment hit the media and heated arguments in the comments section of articles emerge. While corporal punishment occasionally makes its way into the limelight, it is a decision all parents are faced with eventually and often times daily. For example, when a toddler is sprawled out on the grocery store floor kicking, hitting, and flinging
Punishment is a process through which “the consequence of a response decreases the likelihood that the response will recur” (Gray, 2002, pp.115). Further, punishment can be seen as an effort to decrease the response rate to stimuli by either removing a desired stimulus or presenting one which is undesired (Gray, 2002). Recent studies suggest that punishment can be an effective method of behaviour modification. However, as reported in Lerman and Vorndran (2002), there are a number of limitations to punishment as an intervention and subsequent negative side effects. For this reason, certain principles upon which the implementation of a successful punishment is dependent must be adhered to. In accordance to these findings, this essay will contend that whilst there are alternative means to operant conditioning, certain punishment techniques have been proven to be effectual and in some aspects advantageous.
Corporal punishment means to educate by implement of physical pain on learners in order to enhance their ability of studying. As we know, students will often follow the instructions which given by their instructor. However, if they don’t, many instructors are likely to introduce the corporal punishment such as hitting, slapping, spanking and kicking rather than promotes the oral education method to force their students to have a better performance. Gradually, corporal punishment have become a widely known phenomenon all over the world. According to the Department of Education’s 2006 Civil Rights Data Collection (CRDC), it clearly showed that a total of 223,190 students without disabilities received corporal punishment in that year around the