Effects of Gender on Spanking to Discipline Child

Statement of Problem

Do mothers favor spanking as a form of discipline over fathers? Many children have been disciplined by their parents using corporal punishment for misbehaving. There are benefits of spanking your children; many believe it teaches children appropriate behavior. The stereotypical thought is that mothers nurture, and fathers’ discipline. But how accurate is this perception? Mothers are typically the child’s main caretaker, in addition, they balance the household tasks.

The father typically works outside the home and spends the least amount of time with the children; leaving majority of the disciplining to the mother. This begs the question, why do parents choose to discipline their children by spanking? Parents may feel it is their responsibility to discipline their children but are unable to find the best method of how to discipline their child. Additionally, parents may choose to discipline their children in the same manner their parents did before.

Review of Literature and Development of Hypotheses

An individual’s upbringing may have an incredible influence on their parenting style (disciplinary actions) when they become parents. According to the article “To Spank or Not To Spank:” The Effect of Situation and Age of Child on Support for Corporal Punishment by C.P. FLYNN mentions that Males and African Americans are more supportive of corporal punishment than Females and Whites.

The author suggest that this may be due to Males and African Americans being subjected to more incidences of corporal punishment during their upbringing when compared to Females and Whites. These results add another layer of complexity to this issue, which is ethnicity. Not only does up bringing shape ones parenting style, but also the advice that they seek from friends and family, as well as, religious leaders and healthcare professionals. Overall, there are various factors that can determine the method of discipline one uses during parenthood.

I predict that Mothers, compared to Fathers, favor Spanking as a form of disciplining a child. My Null Hypotheses is that there is no difference between Mothers and Fathers in favor of spanking to discipline a child.

Methods

I analyzed the results of the 2010 General Social Survey (GSS) conducted by the National Opinion Research Center which is composed of random samples of non-institutionalized, English-Speaking Americans 18 years of age or older. My first GSS variable is Gender (Sex) as my Independent Variable and respondents had two choices: male and female (GSS, 2010). My second GSS variable is Favor Spanking to Discipline Child (Spanking) as my Dependent Variable and respondents had four choices: Strongly Agree, Agree, Disagree, and Strongly Disagree (GSS, 2010).

Findings

The First GSS variable is Favor of Spanking to Discipline Child (Spanking) which is also our Dependent Variable. There were 1417 respondents out of 2044 who answered this question. 16.4% of respondents reported they Strongly Agree with spanking, 31.7 said they Agree with spanking, 15.9 Disagree with spanking, and 5.4Stongly Disagree with spanking. The mode is Agree, which is the most frequent response. The Range is, Strongly Agree to Strongly Disagree.

The second GSS variable is Gender (Sex) which is the Dependent Variable. There was a total of 2044 respondents who answered. 43.6% of respondents reported being male, 56.5% of respondents reported being Female. The mode is Female which is the most frequent response.

The two GSS variables are Gender (Sex) and Spanking. 1417 of respondents answered the survey. 48.2% were Males and 51.8% were Females who Strongly Agree to favor spanking to discipline a child. 44.4% were Males and 55.6% were Females who Agree to favor Spanking. 37.7% were Males and 62.3% were Females who Disagree to favor Spanking, 26.4% were Males and 73.6% were Female who Strongly Disagree to favor spanking.

A fascinating result in my findings were that the highest difference between males and females occurred in the same category of Strongly Disagree, where Males were 26.4% and Females were 73.6%. In Addition, the results of my findings demonstrate that the majority of Males and Females either Strongly Agree or Agree to discipline a child by Spanking when compared to those who either Disagree or Strongly Disagree. No correlation was determined between sex and spanking due to the Lambda value of zero.

Discussion

I was surprised by the outcome. It was interesting to find not only mothers prefer Spanking as a form of discipline than fathers. In addition, the results between mother and fathers Strongly Agreeing was not a dramatic difference. The fluctuation in the result suggest that there is no correlation between Gender and Spanking as a Form of Discipline.

The value for Chi-Square is 20.243 with the Degree of Freedom of 3 and the asymptotic significance of .000. The values for Lambda are .000 across both variables. The value for Gamma .177 with an asymptotic standard error of .042, approximate T = of 4.194, and approximate significance of .000. With Lambda and Gamma being .000 there is no significance between both variables

Conclusion

After reviewing the results from the Crosstabulation it was determined that Mothers do favor Spanking more than the Fathers, albeit by a small margin. Also, however, those who do not favor Spanking as a form of Discipline resulted in a much larger margin where Males (26.4%) were superseded by Females (73.6%). The information provided suggest that there is no significant relationship between Sex and Spanking due to a zero Lambda.

References

1. Flynn, C. P. (1998). To Spank or Not To Spank: The Effect of Situation and Age of Child on Support for Corporal Punishment. Journal of Family Violence, 13(1), 21–37.
2. National Opinion Research Center. (2010). General Social Survey (GSS). Data Set GSS10PFP- A, The National Data Program for the sciences (NORC). Chicago, IL: University of Chicago. https://doi-org.ezproxy.collegeofthedesert.edu/10.1023/A:1022808716048
3. Taylor, C., McKasson, S., Hoy, G., & DeJong, W. (2017). Parents’ Primary Professional Sources of Parenting Advice Moderate Predictors of Parental Attitudes toward Corporal Punishment. Journal of Child & Family Studies, 26(2), 652–663. https://doi-org.ezproxy.collegeofthedesert.edu/10.1007/s10826-016-0586-3