小孩儿常被打屁股易变傻

       In the U.S., Straus and his colleague Mallie Paschall of the Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation, looked at 1,510 children — 806 kids ages 2 to 4, and 704 ages 5 to 9 — and found that roughly three-quarters had endured some kind of corporal punishment in the previous two weeks, according to interviews with the mothers. Researchers measured the children's IQ initially, then again four years later. Those kids who hadn't been spanked in the initial survey period scored significantly better on intelligence and achievement tests than those who had been hit. Among the 2-to-4-year-olds, the difference in IQ was five points; among the older kids, there was a 2.8-point gap. That association held after taking into account parental education, income and other environmental factors, says Straus.

　　在美国，斯特劳斯和他在太平洋研究所的同事迈里·帕什尔一起做过一个项目。这位同事是专职于调查与评估的。他们以1510个小孩为观察对象，其中806个2到4岁；704个5到9岁。当时，他们通过对孩子的家长的采访了解到，四分之三的孩子在2个星期内被体罚过。他们先对孩子们的智商进行了测试，然后4年以后进行回访。最后发现，在当时调查期间没有受到体罚的孩子，在智力测验和成就测验上的得分均高于受过体罚的孩子。其中2到4岁这一批里面，得分的差距是5分，而5到9岁的一批里面，差距是2.8分。斯特劳斯说，他们在挑选受访人群时，是考虑了各家庭的亲子教育，收入状况和其他因素都不相同这一先设条件的。

　　So how might getting spanked on the butt actually affect the workings of the brain? Straus notes that being spanked or hit is associated with fright and stress; kids who experience that kind of trauma have a harder time focusing and learning. In another recent paper that he coauthored with Paschall, Straus writes that previous research has found that even after you control for parental education and occupation, children of parents who use corporal punishment are less likely than other kids to graduate from college.

　　那么为何打的是屁股，伤的是脑袋呢？ 斯特劳斯发现，体罚会使小孩受惊吓、有压力。有过这种创伤的小孩很难集中注意力和有效地学习。在他与帕士奇合著、最近发表的另一篇论文中，他提到，即使在孩子们的家庭教育情况、父母的职业都接近的情况下，相对来说，那些受过体罚的小孩顺利完成大学学业也要困难一些。

　　Still, it's not clear if spanking causes lower cognitive ability or if lower cognitive ability might somehow lead to more spanking. It's quite possible that kids with poor reasoning skills misbehave more often and therefore elicit harsher punishment. "It could be that lower IQ causes parents to get exasperated and hit more," Straus says, although he notes that a recent Duke University study of low-income families found that toddlers' low mental ability did not predict an increase in spanking. (The study did find, however, that kids who were spanked at age 1 displayed more aggressive behavior by age 2, and scored lower on cognitive development tests by age 3.) "I believe the relationship [between corporal punishment and IQ] is probably bidirectional," says Straus. "There has to be something the kid is doing that's wrong that leads to corporal punishment. The problem is, when the parent does that, it seems to have counterproductive results to cognitive ability in the long term."

　　但是有一点必须考虑到。我们无法确认是受到体罚造成了智力低下，还是正因智力低下而导致孩子容易受到体罚。有些小孩脑袋没那么灵光，他们可能经常做错事而被罚。斯特劳斯也是承认这一点的。他说，智力低的小孩，确实容易引起父母发火，所以挨的板子要多一些。但是杜克大学最近对低收入家庭作了一项研究，发现还在蹒跚学步的儿童，是不会因为智力方面的原因而受到惩罚的。（同时，他们偏偏又发现，那些1岁时被打过的小孩，2岁时会有打别人的举动，3岁时智力偏低。） “小孩受体罚和小孩智力变低，这两者之间我认为是一种恶性循环。”斯特劳斯说， “小孩做错事，父母体罚他，从长远来看，会对孩子的认知能力造成负面的影响，而这与家长体罚的初衷是相反的。”

　　One problem with Straus' data is that some of the parents who tended to spank may also have been engaging in actual physical abuse of their children. Researchers define corporal punishment as physical force intended to cause pain — but not injury — for the purpose of correcting a child's behavior, not simply hurting him. Studies have shown that very few parents who use corporal punishment also beat their kids, but Straus can't rule out the possibility that his data is confounded by the presence of child abuse, which past research has shown to affect victims' development.

　　斯特劳斯的数据也是有漏洞的：有些家长在体罚孩子的时候，对孩子身体的身体造成了确确实实的伤害。而斯特劳斯他们对“体罚”的定义为：对孩子肉体的一种惩罚——在程度上，只产生疼痛，不造成伤害；在出发点上，是为修正孩子的行为，而不是为了惩罚而惩罚。虽然只有极少数家长在体罚时会痛打孩子，这是有研究证明的，但是斯特劳斯无法排除这样一种可能性：他所说的体罚，其实包含了孩子肉体受到伤害这一类情况。而肉体受到伤害的情况，过去就已有结论，这是会影响孩子各方面的发育的。