MysterionMuffles Posted October 23, 2014 Posted October 23, 2014 Somebody posted this article in response to Stefan's Facebook post linking to the study of toddler's capacity for social cues: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/healthnews/6926823/Smacked-children-more-successful-later-in-life-study-finds.html It...well... I have my own thoughts on how the positivity of spanking poorly argued for in this article, but I'd like to see what you guys think first.
Lars Posted October 23, 2014 Posted October 23, 2014 It seems like the standard "success later in life" for this apparent study was a measure of conformity rather than psychological well-being. They also completely failed to take into account other common forms of abuse such as neglect. Also, if the study relied on those teenagers telling the truth, then I doubt the ones who were most brutally hit would be terribly honest about their humiliating situation. Having said, it doesn't look like they distinguished the degree and frequency of physical abuse where different kids would have a different idea of what it entails based on their own isolated experiences.
ProfessionalTeabagger Posted October 23, 2014 Posted October 23, 2014 Being more successful and happy in an insane world may require being hit. If you are not hit then then you will be more likely to understand the true nature of how the world is run and be less happier and less willing to do the things you need to to get ahead. There may be lots of immoral things you can do to make people happier and more successful. 1
TheRobin Posted October 23, 2014 Posted October 23, 2014 Well, most parents seem the walk a line of either neglect of violence when it comes to teaching their children stuff. And I have no problems accepting that neglect makes a child more prone to not want to succeed that much later as it fundamentally undermines motivation. But concluding that spanking causes success later just based on that correlation I think is entirely unwarranted.
MysterionMuffles Posted October 26, 2014 Author Posted October 26, 2014 Yes, good points on their definition of "success." What I found, or I guess DIDN'T find in this article, is the methodology where they came to the conclusion that spanking causes positive behaviours. They went here's a hypothesis, here's the conclusion, but they didn't explain what positive effects the physical assault causes to the brain.
dsayers Posted October 26, 2014 Posted October 26, 2014 More importantly, "positive behaviors" is not a standard. If you put a gun to somebody's head, they'll engage in the positive behavior of giving you their wallet. It's a utilitarian argument, which is a distant second to the moral consideration? Why is the moral consideration paramount? Because it's the adherence to the real world. Assault is the simultaneous acceptance and rejection of property rights. It is an internally inconsistent behavior. To promote it is to promote letting people believe they can fly up to the point of them jumping off of a building. It's a break from reality with very harmful effects. Unlike the jumper example, the harm of assault is inflicted on somebody else. A developing somebody else. I'm embarrassed that it was EVER considered a beneficial practice.
J. D. Stembal Posted October 27, 2014 Posted October 27, 2014 I'm crashing the comments section. Who's with me? Edit: Boo hiss, it's closed. I was going to write that polling 179 teenagers about school, happiness and life optimism is like surveying a handful of Jews about what they're going to do when they get out of the concentration camp and calling it spanking research.
Lars Posted October 27, 2014 Posted October 27, 2014 It doesn't look like the article received much attention after 4 years, eh. Other than 6000 Facebook shares which were probably drowned out by a storm of Farmville notifications. 1
CallMeViolet Posted October 27, 2014 Posted October 27, 2014 Well first where did he get this information? There are no references here... Also at the bottom it says children who are smacked are more aggressive; so it goes against what they're claiming; unless they want people to become aggressive. Also if someone is doing better in school it's probably because of their fear of getting hit... Which is some fuckin terrible motivation... Also just because it's easier to hit a child then to explain why something is wrong doesn't make it right; it makes the parent lazy, cruel, and incompetent. Honestly this just sounds like some sick sadist just trying to defend hitting defenseless children. I don't get why this was published but I can confidently say the guy that wrote this and the people who agree with it are pieces of shit. 2
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