Infant and Child Development

Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) Published online 26 January 2009 in Wiley InterScience (www.interscience.wiley.com). DOI: 10.1002/icd.596

The Moderating Effect of Parental Warmth on the Association between Spanking and Child Aggression: a Longitudinal Approach
Ann Michele Stacksa,, Toko Oshiob, Jean Gerardc and Jacqueline Roec
a Department of Psychology, Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA b Department of Family and Child Ecology, Michigan State University, East Lansing, MI, USA c Department of Human Development and Family Studies, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, USA

Using data from the Early Head Start Research and Evaluation Study, this study analysed the stability of child aggressive behaviour beginning in infancy and tested whether spanking when the child was 36 months was associated with aggressive child behaviour among three ethnic groups and whether maternal warmth moderated the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour in each ethnic group at 36 months, after controlling for earlier aggressive behaviour. Participants included 693 Hispanic parent child dyads, 1013 African-American dyads and 1086 Caucasian dyads who met qualications for participation in the Early Head Start programme. Findings suggest that infant temperament was associated with aggressive behaviour at 24 and 36 months and that child aggression remained stable. Among the three ethnic groups, spanking was only associated with aggressive behaviour for children who had Caucasian mothers and maternal warmth did not moderate the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour. Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Key words: spanking; parenting; early childhood; discipline; aggressive behaviour; Early Head Start

A large body of research and a variety of early intervention programmes are devoted to understanding and treating early aggression. Aggression and
*Correspondence to: Ann Michele Stacks, Department of Psychology, Merrill Palmer Skillman Institute, Wayne State University, 71 East Ferry street, Detroit, MI 48202, USA. E-mail: amstacks@wayne.edu
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antisocial behaviour tend to be stable over time and predictive of a variety of adverse child outcomes including school failure (Loeber & Dishion, 1983; Olweus, 1979; Tremblay, Pihl, Vitaro, & Dobkin, 1994), especially in the context of family adversity (Campbell, Shaw, & Gilliom, 2000). Some early intervention programmes, for example, Early Head Start or home visitation programmes, target families whose children are at risk for developmental problems, including aggressive behaviour, while other programmes offer services to families whose young children are already exhibiting behaviour concerns. Many of these programmes focus on helping the parents of toddlers and preschoolers use effective, non-physical discipline, while others attempt to prevent early aggression by working with parents to improve their parenting skills including increasing sensitivity for parents of infants and toddlers. Programmes focus on increasing parental sensitivity because research suggests that a lack of parental warmth and emotional support is associated with behaviour problems in toddlers, preschoolers and early elementary school children (McCarty, Zimmerman, Diqiuseppe, & Christakis, 2005; McLoyd & Smith, 2002) and that sensitivity is related to toddler compliance with maternal request (Kochanksa & Murray, 2000). Furthermore, sensitive and responsive parenting fosters a secure attachment, which serves as a foundation for self-regulation and prosocial behaviour (Claussen & Crittenden, 2000). According to Baumrind (1989), authoritative parenting, which includes providing the children with emotional support and appropriate amounts of autonomy, allowing the children the opportunity for communication and setting high standards, is associated with positive child outcomes; in contrast, ineffective discipline characterized by coercion is associated with antisocial behaviour (Patterson, DeBaryshe, & Ramsey, 1989). The effectiveness of one discipline strategy, spanking, and its relation to child behavioural outcomes is highly debated. Proponents of anti-spanking argue that spanking teaches children to become aggressive (Gunnoe & Mariner, 1997) and there is a large body of research to support their claim. For example, a metaanalysis conducted by Gershoff (2002) provides evidence that parental corporal punishment is associated with negative child behaviours including decreased moral internalization, increased aggression and antisocial behaviour and decreased overall mental health. Other studies suggest that this association remains even after accounting for the effects of child factors such as early behaviour problems, genetic risk and temperament (Cohen & Brook, 1995; Grogan-Kaylor, 2005; Kandel & Wu, 1995; OConnor, Deater-Deckard, Fulker, Rutter, & Plomin, 1998; Paolucci & Violato, 2004; Straus, Sugarman, & Giles-Sims, 1997; Weiss, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1992) and family factors such as income, race, family structure and maternal employment and education (Grogan-Kaylor, 2005; Shumow, Vandell, & Posner, 1998; Straus et al., 1997). Using the National Longitudinal Study of Youth (NLSY), McLoyd and Smith (2002) followed a group of children over a 4-year period. Their results suggest that children who experience more spanking demonstrate increased behaviour problems over time and that when the amount of spanking decreases over time the impact on the growth of behaviour problems is lessened. Findings from studies that support the relationship between physical punishment and child behaviour problems differ in the degree to which spanking accounts for the variance in child behaviour. For example, Paolucci and Violato (2004) reported that corporal punishment only had a small negative effect on child behavioural outcomes. While the meta-analysis conducted by Gershoff (2002) had strong evidence using longitudinal data, Larzelere, Kuhn, and Johnson (2004) argue that some of
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the studies in her analysis use intervention samples, which bias the conclusions that were drawn because children whose parents seek out services probably have more behaviour problems than those whose parents do not use intervention services. Baumrind, Larzelere, and Cowan (2002) report that Gershoffs (2002) analysis was awed because 58% of her effect size estimates came from crosssectional analyses and 65% did not discriminate between non-abusive and abusive physical discipline. In general, the literature that examines the effect of spanking on childrens behaviour is lled with methodological problems, including measuring behaviour and discipline at the same time point, using the same source to report discipline and behaviour, and using a retrospective design (Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005). Another major aw cited by Kelley, Power, and Wimbush (1992) is that past studies have confounded ethnicity and social class by comparing middle-class White families with poor minority families. Furthermore, it appears that study design is associated with ndings. For example, cross-sectional studies are more likely than longitudinal studies or studies that control for earlier misbehaviour to nd that spanking is associated with negative outcomes. When the way in which parents use physical punishment is considered, for example, when physical punishment is overly severe or the primary discipline strategy, longitudinal studies and cross-sectional studies that control for initial misbehaviour nd that physical punishment has the most negative effect on child outcomes (Larzelere & Kuhn 2005). The literature also reects opposing ndings, which makes it difcult to draw rm conclusions about the association between physical discipline and child behaviour. In a comprehensive review based on 35 peer-reviewed longitudinal studies on the relationship between customary physical punishment and child outcome, Larzelere (1996) reported that 34% of the studies found detrimental outcomes, 40% of the studies found neutral outcomes and 26% of the studies found benecial outcomes. Those who do not believe that non-violent physical discipline is associated with negative child outcomes argue that corporal punishment can be benecial under some circumstances including the following: when it is administered by emotionally supportive parents, when it is used sparingly and non-violently and when it is used conditionally in response to deance (Larzelere, 1996; Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005; Paolucci & Violato, 2004). Findings from a meta-analysis conducted by Larzelere and Kuhn (2005) suggest that conditional physical punishment is more effective than alternate discipline strategies at reducing non-compliance and antisocial behaviour especially when it is used to reinforce milder discipline tactics and when the physical punishment is not severe. This nding supports the results of Larzeleres (2000) study, which also found that non-abusive spanking of children between the ages of 2 and 6 years is benecial when it is used to back up other discipline methods. The impact of any kind of discipline on child outcomes is dependent upon a number of factors including the following: (1) the discipline method that parents use, for example, spanking, reasoning or time-out, (2) the frequency that they use a particular method, for example, as a primary disciplinary method or as a back-up to another method and (3) the way in which they administer the disciplinary method, for example, spanking when angry or out of control or spanking that is predictable and used as a back-up (Darling & Steinberg, 1993; Gershoff, 2002). Furthermore, parental factors, including lower socioeconomic status (SES), lower levels of maternal education and higher levels of stress and depression, which are associated with increased spanking are also associated with child behaviour issues (GilesSims, Straus, & Sugarman, 1995; Kelley et al., 1992; Smith & Brooks-Gunn, 1997).
Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

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Lansford et al. (2005) suggest that different parenting styles may be more adaptive in different contexts, for example, when children are growing up in dangerous neighbourhoods a parent-oriented approach to discipline may be more effective. Baumrind (1996) and Deater-Deckard and Dodge (1997) suggest that the context in which corporal punishment is used may impact whether child outcome is positive or negative. One parental factor that appears to moderate the association between physical discipline and child outcome is parental warmth (Gershoff, 2002; McLoyd & Smith, 2002). McLoyd and Smith (2002) examined the buffering effects of maternal warmth on the relationship between spanking and behaviour problems longitudinally in African-American, Hispanic and Caucasian families. Their ndings suggest a buffering effect in Hispanic and African-American families; mothers who reported spanking their children but also demonstrated warmth and emotional support had children who showed smaller increase in behaviour problems over time. Furthermore, in all racial groups, children demonstrated an increase in behaviour problems over time if they: (1) had parents who spanked them at least once in the past week and who were classied as being low (1 S.D. below the mean) on maternal warmth or (2) if they were not spanked, but had a parent who was classied as being 1 S.D. below the mean on warmth. In all groups, children whose parents were classied as having high levels of warmth (1 S.D. above the mean) did not demonstrate an increase in behaviour problems over time, even if they were spanked. In their study of the moderating effect of parental warmth on the correlation between physical discipline and child externalizing behaviour among biological and adoptive families, Deater-Deckard, Ivy, and Petrill (2005) also found that the effect of harsh parental discipline on child aggressive behaviour is strongest when the motherchild relationship lacks warmth. Studies that examine the effect of physical discipline in different racial/ethnic groups also have conicting ndings. Some studies suggest that corporal punishment has an effect on child behaviour, regardless of the familys racial background. For example, using data from the NLSY, Grogan-Kaylor (2005) and McLoyd and Smith (2002) reported that there were no differences in the effect of corporal punishment on child behavioural outcomes across racial groups. Other studies, however, suggest that the effects of physical discipline on child outcomes may vary depending on the familys racial background. For example, DeaterDeckard, Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (1996) found that corporal punishment of children between the ages of 1 and 5 years is associated with externalizing behaviour in kindergarten through third grade for White children, but not for African-American children. Using structural equations modeling, Gunnoe and Mariner (1997) reported that spanking decreased subsequent ghting in AfricanAmerican children, but increased ghting in White children. These ndings suggest the need for separate analyses by racial and ethnic differences (Slade & Wissow, 2004). The discrepant ndings may be due to the wide range of disciplinary practices among African-American parents (Kelley et al., 1992), which are inuenced by the contexts in which the families live. In interviews with 25 low-income AfricanAmerican mothers, Kelley (1988, as cited in Kelley et al., 1992) found that fathers presence and increased maternal education were associated with more childoriented discipline strategies. While there are a wide range of discipline strategies used by African-American parents, the use of spanking has greater normative acceptance and is more common in African-American families than among Caucasian families (Giles-Sims et al., 1995; Mosby, Rawls, Mehan, Mays, & Pettinari, 1999; Smith & Brooks-Gunn, 1997). However, in African-American families spanking is likely to co-occur with parental warmth.
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Child characteristics such as age, gender and temperament also appear to inuence whether children are spanked and the association between spanking and subsequent behaviour. Several studies suggest that boys tend to receive more physical punishment than girls (Giles-Sims et al., 1995; Smith & Brooks-Gunn, 1997; Straus & Stewart, 1999). The reason for this difference may be due to different parental expectations for boys and girls behaviour or because boys tend to exhibit more aggression than girls (Gershoff, 2002; Parke & Slaby, 1983). Aggression in early childhood is associated with a difcult infant temperament (Smith & Brooks-Gunn, 1997), which may elicit harsh treatment and forceful discipline by parents in an attempt to stop unwanted behaviours (Belsky, 1984). Corporal punishment may have a different effect on children of different ages, in part because a childs age determines his or her level of cognitive functioning, which in turn impacts his or her ability to understand the punishment (Gershoff, 2002). Physical discipline is primarily used with children under the age of 5 years (Straus & Stewart, 1999); the negative effect of severe and prominent physical punishment may be greater for young children (Larzelere & Kuhn, 2005), especially children who are under the age of 24 months because they are developing the emotional and cognitive foundations of prosocial behaviour (Slade & Wissow, 2005). Brenner and Fox (1998) reported that in children under the age of 5 years, parental discipline accounted for more than 13% of the unique variance in behaviour problems, even after controlling for family demographic variables. Other studies, however, have found that conditional physical punishment appears to be more effective and less strongly associated with negative outcomes in younger children (Gershoff, 2002), and even when there is an association between spanking and behaviour problems, only a small number of children are affected. For example, Slade and Wissow (2005) found that only 15% of non-Hispanic White children under the age of 2 years who were spanked ve times in a weeklong period had behaviour problems that could be considered clinically signicant. The majority of the research on the effect of physical discipline on childrens behaviour has relied on samples of preschool or school-age children, yet there is evidence that beginning at age 2, aggression is predictive of severe behaviour problems at school age (Keenan & Shaw, 1994). Furthermore, the frequency in spanking peaks between the ages of 2 and 4 years, when approximately 90% of the children are spanked (Straus, 1991). Despite the potential risks to cognitive and emotional development associated with physical punishment of very young children, research suggests that almost 20% of mothers believed that it was okay to spank infants who are younger than 12 months (Socolar & Stein, 1995). According to Wissow (2001), results of a survey conducted by the Common Wealth Fund suggested that 11% of the parents had spanked an infant between the ages of 6 and 11 months, 36% had spanked an infant between the ages of 12 and 17 months and 59% reported spanking a toddler between the ages of 18 and 23 months. Clearly, more research on the association between physical discipline and child outcomes beginning in infancy is needed. This research needs to be longitudinal, beginning in infancy and control for the childs behaviour at an earlier time point and analyses should be separate for cultural groups (Gershoff, 2002; Straus et al., 1997). This study attempts to follow the recommendations outlined above using data from Early Head Start Research and Evaluation (EHSRE) Study to determine the stability of child behaviour beginning in infancy and to test whether spanking is associated with aggressive behaviour among three ethnic groups and whether maternal warmth moderates the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour at 36 months.
Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

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METHOD
The data used in this study are from the National EHSRE study public use les. This evaluation was conducted between 1996 and 2001, using 3001 motherchild dyads who were randomly assigned to either a comparison group or one of the 17 Early Head Start sites around the country. Approximately 66% of the participants, all of whom were mothers and their children, were recruited during pregnancy and the other 33% were recruited before the child was 6 months old. To be eligible for the study, all of the families had to be living below the federal poverty line (Love et al., 2001). Baseline demographic data were collected from all study participants when they applied to participate in Early Head Start and follow-up data were collected a three time points based upon the following criteria: (1) the number of months since the children/families were randomly assigned to treatment or control groups (Parent Services Interview, collected at 6, 15 and 24 months after random assignment) and (2) the focal childs age (Parent Interviews, collected when children were 14, 24 and 36 months of age). Data collected during the Parent Services Interviews measured the families use of services and their progress towards self-sufciency, whereas data collected during the Parent Interviews assessed child and family functioning by interviewing the parent, videotaped observations of parentchild interaction, child assessments and interviewer observation (McKelvey & Bloomenthal, 2004). Participants Our analysis included Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic mothers who completed Parent Services Interviews and video assessments when children were 14, 24 and 36 months of age, which decreased the sample to 2792, which is approximately 93% of the total sample. Of the sample mothers, 38.9% are Caucasian, 36.3% are African American and 24.8% are Hispanic. At the time that baseline data were collected the mothers ages ranged from 14 to 40 years (M 5 22.6 years, S.D. 5 5.57), which may partially explain the relatively low level of educational attainment. On average African-American, Caucasian and Hispanic mothers were in their early twenties when their children were born (21.2, 23 and 23.9, respectively). Most of the mothers (48.0%) had completed less than 12 years of schooling; among all mothers, 72% of Hispanic mothers had less than 12 years of education compared with 33% of Caucasian mothers and 47.9% of African-American mothers. Just less than one-third of the mothers in the entire sample (28.9%) had completed 12 years of school or had obtained a general equivalency diploma (GED), and just less than one-fourth (23.1%) had completed more than 12 years of schooling. Less than one-half of the primary caregivers were either employed or enrolled in school or a training programme (23.6% and 21.8%, respectively); more than half (56%) of the African-American mothers were either employed or in school, while less than half of the Caucasian and Hispanic mothers were either working or in school (40.8% and 36.9%, respectively). Approximately one-third (31.6%) of the mothers were married; of those who were not married only 0.5% reported that they were cohabitating. The majority of African-American mothers reported that they were not married or cohabitating (75.4%). Caucasian and Hispanic mothers were more likely than African-American mothers to be married (41.4%, 42.7% and 12.6%, respectively). Table 1 describes the demographic variables for each ethnic group. The
Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

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Table 1. Differences in the demographic variables among three ethnic groups

African American M (S.D.) Maternal age at baseline Marital status Not married or cohabitating Married Separated Divorced Widowed Not married and cohabitating Education Less than 12 years of education 12 Years of education or GED More than 12 years of education Employment Employed In school/training Not employed or in school 21.2 (5.18) 459 77 24 31 15 3 474 283 233 222 333 434 75.4 12.6 3.9 5.1 1.5 0.5 47.9 28.6 23.5 22.4 32.8 43.9 N % Caucasian M (S.D.) 23 (5.30) 246 34.6 294 41.4 95 13.4 34 4.8 38 5.3 4 0.6 354 33.1 400 37.5 314 29.4 274 25.5 164 15.3 636 59.2 N % Hispanic M N (S.D.) 23.9 (6.12) 132 180 79 20 10 1 481 104 82 150 99 425 31.3 42.7 18.7 4.7 2.4 0.2 72.1 15.6 12.3 22.3 14.7 63.1 %

percentages of boys and girls in the sample are approximately equal (48.8% female) and the majority of children did not have siblings. Measures The EHSRE study public use data set only includes subscale information for each measure. As a result, the internal consistency for each measure used in this study cannot be reported. The study authors report that internal consistency for all the measures is 0.70 or greater, with the exception of the Home Observation for the Measure of Environment (HOME), which they report as being 0.69 (Love et al., 2005). Parenting variables Parent Interviews for the entire EHSRE sample were conducted at 14, 24 and 36 months and included parent self-report, videotaped observations, child assessments and interviewer observation. For the present analyses, we used parental report of spanking use at 14, 24 and 36 months as predictors of child aggressive behaviour at 36 months, and maternal warmth at 36 months as a moderator of the relationship between spanking use and child aggressive behaviour. The use of spanking was measured using a binary variable in which the parent indicated whether she has spanked the child in the past week. A score of 1 on this measure indicates that the parent spanked the child in the last week and a 0 indicates that spanking had not been used in the previous week. Maternal warmth was measured using the maternal warmth subscale from HOME (Caldwell & Bradley, 2003). For this scale, scores are based entirely on
Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

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interviewer observations of the parents interaction with her child. All items are scored as either yes or no and include whether the mother kissed or caressed the child during the visit, conveyed positive feeling verbally and praised the child during the interview. Scores on this subscale can range from 0, if none of the positive behaviours were observed, to 3, if all of the behaviours were observed. Only scale scores are available in the public use les of this data set. As a result, reliability information cannot be calculated; however, the study authors report an internal consistency of 0.72 for the HOME emotional responsivity subscale for a sample of 1794 families participating in the EHSRE study (Love et al., 2002). Child behaviour All the measures of child behaviour were assessed by parent report at the 14-, 24- and 36-month Parent Interview. For this study, child behaviour at 14 months was used as a predictor of child behaviour at 24 months, which was subsequently used a predictor of child behaviour at 36 months. Child behaviour at 14 months was conceptualized as temperament and measured using the emotionality subscale from the Emotionality, Adaptability, Sociability Temperament Survey for Children (Buss & Plomin, 1984). This subscale is the mean score of 5 items, which range from 1 (not very typical of your child) to 5 (very typical of your child). Internal consistency data are not reported in the data set documentation. Child aggressive behaviour at 24 and 36 months was assessed via parent report using the aggressive behaviour scale score on the Achenbach System of Empirically Based Assessment (ASEBA) Child Behavior Checklist for ages 11 25 years (Achenbach & Rescorla, 2000). The ASEBA includes 32 items at 24 months and 39 items at 36 months, 19 of which measure the incidence of aggressive behaviour. Parents report on a three-point scale how true these behaviours are for their children, and it includes 0 (not true), 1 (somewhat or sometimes true) and 2 (very often true). Scores on this subscale can range from 0, if the parents never observe any of the behaviour problems, to 38, if the parents report that all of the behaviours are often true for their child. The raw score of the aggressive behaviour scale was used for this study. Study authors report that the internal consistency for this scale at 24 months is 0.91 and at 36 months is 0.88 (Love et al., 2002). Analysis As 7a preliminary step, bivariate correlations were used to examine the strength of associations among 14-month temperament, 24- and 36-month aggressive behaviour and maternal warmth. One-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) was used to examine whether these variables differed among Caucasians, African Americans and Hispanics and between females and males. As a primary analytic strategy, multiple hierarchical regression was used to examine the relationship between parenting and child behaviour as it permits one to isolate the variance contributed by individual or groups of variables entered in different blocks (Aiken & West, 1991). The moderating effect of maternal warmth was also investigated separately for each ethnic group.

RESULTS
Preliminary Analysis To understand more clearly the associations among child temperament, child aggressive behaviour and maternal warmth, we attempted to identify possible
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Table 2. Pearson correlations among variables

1 1. 2. 3. 4. 14-Month 24-Month 36-Month 36-Month child temperament aggressive behaviour aggressive behaviour maternal warmth 0.269 0.209 0.068 2 0.527 0.138 3 0.130 4

po0. 01 (two-tailed).

Table 3. Means, standard deviations and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) among three ethnic groups for the variables
Variable Caucasians M 14-Month 24-Month 36-Month 36-Month child temperament 2.86a aggressive behaviour 12.42 aggressive behaviour 11.80a maternal warmth 2.61a African Americans S.D. 0.99 6.90 6.37 0.94 Hispanics M 2.99b 12.74 10.86b 2.60a S.D. F ANOVA p

S.D. M 0.88 3.07b 6.24 12.85 6.38 10.61b 0.77 2.37b

0.99 10.41 0.000 7.44 0.81 0.446 6.83 6.69 0.001 0.78 15.59 0.000

Note: Means in the same row that do not share the same superscript are signicantly different (Tamhane, po0.05).

Table 4. Means, standard deviations and one-way analyses of variance (ANOVA) among males and females for the variables
Variable M 14-Month 24-Month 36-Month 36-Month child temperament aggressive behaviour aggressive behaviour maternal warmth 3.00 13.16 11.65 2.51 Males S.D. 0.97 7.05 6.75 0.84 M 2.94 12.11 10.63 2.53 Females S.D. 0.93 6.44 6.20 0.85 F 2.27 11.97 11.79 0.34 ANOVA p 0.132 0.001 0.001 0.56

covariates before testing the model using bivariate correlation and one-way ANOVA (see Tables 24). All of the temperament and child behaviours were signicant positive correlates of each other and they were signicant negative correlates of maternal warmth. These include the correlations between: 14-month child temperament and 24-month child aggressive behaviour (po0.01), 14-month child temperament and 36-month child aggressive behaviour (po0.01), 14-month child temperament and maternal warmth (po0.01), 24-month child aggressive behaviour and 36-month child aggressive behaviour (po0.01), 24-month child aggressive behaviour and maternal warmth (po0.01) and 36-month child aggressive behaviour and maternal warmth (po0.01). To determine whether multicollinearity was an issue in this model, a collinearity diagnostic test was conducted; the results showed that each variable had a high tolerance level; thus, multicollinearity was not likely to be a signicant problem in the model. The results of one-way ANOVA (see Table 3) suggested that child temperament, aggressive behaviour and maternal warmth differed signicantly among the
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three ethnic groups (F(2, 2184) 5 10.41, po0.001; F(3, 1907) 5 6.69, po0.01; F(2, 1689) 5 15.59, po0.001, respectively. Post hoc tests were conducted to nd specically where signicant differences existed among ethnic groups. These tests revealed that 14-month child emotionality in the African-American (M 5 3.07, S.E. 5 0.99) and Hispanic (M 5 2.99, S.E. 5 0.99) samples was signicantly higher than that in the Caucasian sample (M 5 0.2.86, S.E. 5 0.88). Further, aggressive behaviour measured at 36 months was signicantly higher in the Caucasian sample (M 5 11.80, S.E. 5 6.38) than it was in the African-American (M 5 10.61, S.E. 5 6.37) and Hispanic samples (M 5 10.86, S.E. 5 6.83). Aggressive behaviour did not differ among the groups at 24 months. Caucasian and Hispanic mothers exhibited signicantly higher levels of maternal warmth (M 5 2.61, S.E. 5 0.77; M 5 2.60, S.E. 5 0.78, respectively) than the African-American parents in the sample (M 5 2.37, S.E. 5 0.94). Signicant gender differences were also found by one-way ANOVA in 24- and 36-month child aggressive behaviour (F(1, 1973) 5 11.97, po0.01; F(1, 1908) 5 11.79, po0.01, respectively). Males were signicantly more aggressive at 24 and 36 months (M 5 13.16, S.E. 5 7.05; M 5 11.65, S.E. 5 6.75, respectively) than females (M 5 12.11, S.E. 5 6.44; M 5 10.63, S.E. 5 6.20, respectively). Based on these preliminary ndings, ethnicity and gender were used in all regression models as possible covariates.

Table 5. Coefcients of variables in hierarchical multiple regression (N 5 1404)

B Step 1 Constant Caucasian versus African American Caucasian versus Hispanic Child gender 14-Month child temperament 14-Month use of spanking Step 2 Constant Caucasian versus African American Caucasian versus Hispanic Child gender 14-Month child temperament 14-Month use of spanking 24-Month child aggressive behaviour 24-Month use of spanking Step 3 Constant Caucasian versus African American Caucasian versus Hispanic Child gender 14-Month child temperament 14-Month use of spanking 24-Month child aggressive behaviour 24-Month use of spanking 36-Month use of spanking 6.70 1.57 1.13 1.09 1.42 1.24 3.56 1.47 1.17 0.82 0.52 0.29 0.48 0.32 3.06 1.60 1.11 0.76 0.54 0.02 0.48 0.08 1.76 S.E. B 0.59 0.39 0.43 0.34 0.18 0.36 0.53 0.34 0.37 0.29 0.16 0.33 0.02 0.31 0.53 0.34 0.37 0.29 0.16 0.33 0.02 0.32 0.31 t 11.45 4.00 2.62 3.25 7.89 3.41 6.69 4.28 3.14 2.81 3.25 0.89 21.22 1.022 5.74 4.71 3.01 2.66 3.38 0.05 21.13 0.26 5.76 p 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.37 0.00 0.31 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.96 0.00 0.80 0.00

Note: R2 5 0.07 for step 1; DR2 5 0.23 for step 2 (pso.001); DR2 5 0.02 for step 3 (pso.001). Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

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Primary Analysis Hierarchical regression was used to examine the predictive inuence of childs gender, mothers ethnicity, 14-month child temperament, 24-month child aggressive behaviour and parent report of spanking at 14, 24 and 36 months on aggressive behaviour at 36 months (see Table 5). Two dummy variables were created so that ethnicity could be used in the regression model. Caucasian was used as a reference group. Entry of the variables proceeded in the following order: First, the childs gender, the mothers ethnicity, child temperament and use of spanking when the child was 14 months were entered as a rst block, and then child aggressive behaviour and spanking when the child was 24 months were entered as a second block. Finally, parent report of spanking when the child was 36 months was entered in the model. The results suggest that mothers ethnicity, child gender, child temperament, aggressive behaviour at 24 months and the use of spanking at 36 months were signicant predictors of aggressive behaviour when the child was 36 months old and that 32% of variance in child aggressive behaviour at 36 months was explained by all of these predictors. Cohens effect size was 0.39, and it is considered to be large (Cohen, 1988). The addition of aggressive behaviour and spanking at 24 months added signicant unique variance to the model (step 2, DR2 5 0.23, po0.001) as did the addition of spanking at 36 months (step 3, DR2 5 0.02, po0.001). The overall model suggests that early behaviour problems, operationalized as emotionality and aggressive behaviour problems, and the use of spanking at 36 months were unique predictors of aggressive behaviour at 36 months. Being male and Caucasian was also likely to increase the level of 36-month child aggressive behaviour. To determine whether the relationship between spanking and child aggressive behaviour differed among the three ethnic groups and whether parental warmth
Table 6. Coefcients of variables in regression model (Caucasian) (N 5 565)
B Constant Child gender 24-Month child aggressive behaviour 36-Month use of spanking 36-Month maternal warmth 36-Month use of spanking maternal warmth
Note: R2 5 0.28.

S.E. B 1.36 0.45 0.04 1.62 0.44 0.59

t 3.25 2.11 12.39 2.50 0.05 1.34

p 0.00 0.04 0.00 0.01 0.96 0.18

4.43 0.95 0.47 4.05 0.02 0.79

Table 7. Coefcients of variables in regression model (African American) (N 5 459)

B Constant Child gender 24-Month child aggressive behaviour 36-Month use of spanking 36-Month maternal warmth 36-Month use of spanking maternal warmth
Note: R2 5 0.32. Copyright r 2009 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd

S.E. B 1.29 0.50 0.04 1.42 0.45 0.55

t 3.91 1.89 13.19 0.71 1.59 0.33

p 0.00 0.06 0.00 0.48 0.11 0.75

5.03 0.94 0.47 1.01 0.71 0.18

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Table 8. Coefcients of variables in regression model (Hispanic) (N 5 352)

B Constant Child gender 24-Month child aggressive behaviour 36-Month use of spanking 36-Month maternal warmth 36-Month use of spanking maternal warmth
Note: R2 5 0.36.

S.E. B 1.58 0.61 0.04 2.26 0.54 0.82

t 2.47 1.41 12.60 0.01 0.54 0.80

p 0.01 0.16 0.00 0.99 0.59 0.43

3.90 0.86 0.52 0.03 0.29 0.66

moderated the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour at 36 months, separate regression models that included an interaction term between maternal warmth and use of spanking at 36 months were run for each ethnic group (see Tables 68). Results suggest that after controlling for earlier aggressive behaviour, spanking was a signicant predictor of aggressive behaviour at 36 months only for Caucasian children (b 5 4.05, p 5 0.01). Among the three ethnic groups, the best predictor of aggressive behaviour at 36 months was aggressive behaviour at 24 months. Maternal warmth did not moderate the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour at 36 months for children in any of the ethnic groups, yet the effect size remained moderate to large for all three of the models (0.39 for Caucasian, 0.47 for African American and 0.56 for Hispanics), indicating that the signicant association between the variables is meaningful.

DISCUSSION
Consistent with prior longitudinal research that controlled for earlier behaviour problems, the ndings from this study support the notion that early aggressive behaviour remains stable, at least over a 1-year period in early childhood, and that after controlling for aggressive behaviour at 24 months, the use of spanking at 36 months was predictive of aggressive behaviour at 36 months. However, when analyses were run separately by race, spanking was only predictive of aggressive behaviour among Caucasian families. Unlike previous research by McLoyd and Smith (2002), which suggests that spanking, in the context of low levels of maternal emotional support, was a signicant predictor of an increased level of problem behaviour over time among preschool African-American, Hispanic and Caucasian families, our research suggests that spanking was associated with aggressive behaviour at 36 months only for Caucasian families. Although maternal warmth was a signicant negative correlate of aggressive behaviour, it did not moderate the effect of spanking on aggressive behaviour. There are several reasons between the McLoyd and Smith (2002) study and our study, which may account for differences in the ndings. First, the study samples are different. The children in the McLoyd and Smith study were between the ages of 4 and 10 when data were collected, much older than the current sample. Research suggests that spanking may be associated with positive behaviour in children between the ages of 2 and 6, when it is not abusive (Gershoff, 2002; Larzelere, 2000). Further, spanking as a discipline strategy peaks when children are toddlers and declines after children enter school. Perhaps, the
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parents who were spanking regularly in the McLoyd and Smith study were parents whose use of physical punishment did not decrease and perhaps reective of other issues including parent anger management, negative attributions about the child or parenting, reective capacity or another dimension that is related to child outcome. Another possible reason for the different ndings between the studies includes the way spanking was measured. In our sample we used parent report of spanking in the last week. Only knowing if a parent spanked in the last week does not allow us to determine the way in which the spank was carried out, or if the parent spanked only once or more than once. McLoyd and Smiths measure of spanking accounted for frequency and intensity, to the extent that it is possible to do so. They were able to look not only at parent report at baseline, but also at whether spanking was observed during the home visit. In addition, they calculated the average number of times a child was spanked over the 4 years of data collection and also whether the frequency of spanking increased, decreased or stayed the same and whether it was associated with an increase in behaviour problems, both internalizing and externalizing. Finally, the current study addressed aggressive behaviour, rather than all types of behaviour problems, as was studied in the McLoyd and Smith paper. On average, aggressive behaviour of children in our sample decreased from 24 to 36 months, which is typical for this age group. It is important to note that the entire EHSRE sample is low income. Most studies examining corporal punishment and child outcome have used samples that confound ethnicity with SES. There were group differences in the NLSY sample that was used in the McLoyd and Smith study; the percentage of families living in poverty ranged from 42% (Caucasian) to 78% (African American). It is important that the lack of a positive signicant association between spanking and increased aggressive behaviour in this study not be used to suggest that spanking is an effective discipline strategy for reducing aggressive behaviour among low-income African-American and Hispanic children. Our data simply suggest that spanking does not increase aggressive behaviour among African-American and Hispanic children, yet it is equally important to note that our ndings suggest that spanking does not signicantly reduce aggressive behaviour among African-American and Hispanic children. Developmental research suggests that aggressive behaviour in toddlers is to some degree developmentally appropriate, and based on previous research one would expect to see an increase in aggressive and non-compliant behaviour around the age of 18 months, which begins to decline in the second and third years of life; by the time most children begin school, they are able to comply with adult requests, to be cooperative and prosocial (Tremblay, 2000). We also found that aggressive behaviour decreased for Caucasian, African-American and Hispanic children from 24 to 36 months. Nagin and Tremblay (1999) suggest that boys whose aggression was consistently high were most likely to be at risk for antisocial behaviour and violent delinquency. Therefore, it would be interesting to understand the role that spanking and maternal warmth play in the stability of aggression, especially among children whose aggressive behaviour was clinically signicant at 24 and 36 months (persistent aggression), children whose aggression rose from a typical level to a clinical level and those whose aggressive behaviour was clinically signicant at 24 months but decreased to a typical level by 36 months. The current study improves upon others by using longitudinal data that begin in infancy, analysing outcomes separately for three cultural groups and investigating the interaction effect of spanking and maternal warmth on aggressive behaviour. However, we were not able to understand the role that
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spanking and maternal warmth play in early onset and persistent aggressive behaviour and early onset desisted aggressive behaviour because the EHSRE data set does not provide t-scores for aggressive behaviour; therefore, it is impossible to understand if spanking is more or less effective for children whose aggressive behaviour is considered to be clinically signicant at the age of 2 years. While this study suggests that spanking may not be correlated with early aggressive behaviour among African-American and Hispanic children, another reason that one cannot conclude that spanking is benecial for children is that recent research suggests that among African-American samples, spanking may be confounded with other variables, for example, parent demandingness and restrictiveness that are predictive of positive outcomes among high-risk AfricanAmerican youth (Bhandari & Barnett, 2007; McCabe, Clark, & Barnett, 1999). For example, McCabe and her colleagues found that different dimensions of parenting were differentially related to psychosocial outcomes among AfricanAmerican youth. Parental warmth was negatively associated with shy or anxious behaviour; corporal punishment was a signicant predictor of acting out behaviour and was signicantly correlated with demandingness. Although corporal punishment was positively correlated with demandingness, it had opposite relationships with adjustment. Parental warmth was not signicantly related to behaviour problems and it did not moderate the effect of corporal punishment on behaviour problems. This research underscores the need to look at different dimensions of parenting. It may be that the negative effects of corporal punishment on African-American children in this sample were masked by parents provision of rules, structure and discipline. This study has several strengths and limitations. Strengths include the longitudinal examination, beginning in infancy, of the relationship between spanking and aggressive behaviour, the ability to control aggressive behaviour at earlier time periods and the interactive effect that parental warmth plays in the relationship between spanking and aggressive behaviour among children in three cultural groups, all of whom are living in poverty. While there has been a great deal of research examining the relationship between spanking and behavioural outcomes among Caucasian and African-American children, very little research, by comparison, has been conducted with Hispanic children in this area. This study is limited in that we relied on mothers to report spanking, temperament and child behaviour; as a result shared method variance is a concern in this study, that is, the relationship between behaviour over time and spanking and behaviour could be due to parent perceptions. Furthermore, the EHSRE data set does not allow for the determination of the way in which parents in this study used spanking. The study would have been strengthened by knowing the circumstances under which spanking was used, the severity of the spanking and whether it was used as a primary or back-up method. Spanking that is accompanied by abusive parenting or parenting that involves excessive force is no doubt harmful to children. Furthermore, this study only assessed one behavioural outcome for children, aggression. While aggression is one predictor of poor child adjustment, it is important to understand how parenting behaviours impact multiple psychosocial outcomes, including not only negative outcomes such as internalizing and externalizing behaviours, but also positive outcomes such as self-efcacy, emotion regulation, empathy and social skills. While it is important to understand how different dimensions of parenting may be more effective in families characterized by different cultural and socioeconomic backgrounds, it is equally important to
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understand the differential effect of different parenting strategies, such as spanking and withdrawing privileges on children with different temperaments.

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Inf. Child. Dev. 18: 178194 (2009) DOI: 10.1002/icd