Does Religion really encourage child abuse?
Capps analysis based on
science of men rather than science.
Paul W. Robinson Michael P. W. Robinson
Brigham Young University North San Pete School District
Capps (1992, 1995) adopted Freud’s psychological ideas and used them to support his claim that parents and religion are inherently and fundamentally disposed toward the abuse of children. In an attempt to show Capps claims are scientifically unfounded, this article takes an empirical approach to show: (1) Freud’s psychological beliefs upon which Capps bases his claims are scientifically unsound and unproven, (2) contrary to Capps claims, delinquency and aggressive behavior in children is due more to parental permissiveness than parental punishment, (3) Capps punishment free parenting ideas are based on the inner subjective intuitive validation system (the science of men) used by Freud, Adler, and Rogers, (4) empirical research on punishment free parenting systems like PET demonstrate such systems are not effective behavior change systems, (5) empirical evidence supports punishment as a corrective rather than a corruptive procedure, (6) punishment like medications can be used for good or bad.
Capps (1992) presidential address to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion was entitled Religion and Child Abuse: Perfect together. It suggested religion plays a prominent role in promoting child abuse. Three years later Capps (1995) built upon the points he brought out in his talk and created a book entitled, The Child’s Song: The Religious Abuse of Children. While his talk and book contain many thought provoking statements and ideas concerning religion and child abuse, one of his central arguments was that the acceptance of the literal translation of the Bible with its emphasis on punishment, produces a religion that encourages and advocates the physical and emotional abuse of children.
Throughout his article and book Capps adopted Freud’s psychological ideas in building his arguments to validate his contention that religion and parents are inherently and fundamentally disposed toward the abuse of children. Capps acknowledged this as he included a quote from psychoanalyst Alice Miller in his statement that Child rearing is basically directed not toward the child’s welfare but toward satisfying parental needs for power and revenge (Miller, 1984, p. 243), needs that are ultimately traceable to their own experience of being effectively silenced as children (Capps, 1995, p.8).
While the tone of Capps (1992, 1995) writing leaves little question about his honest caring for children and committed concern regarding religion, Capps seems to have been drawn into the humanistic trap of failing to distinguish between science and the science of men.
With science the approach for validating causal or correlational relationships involves collecting as much potentially relevant, objectively measurable data both supportive and unsupportive of any theoretical position and objectively evaluating it while guarding against investigator bias influences based on subjective intuition. When an investigator lets his or her personal, subjective intuition become the standard upon which evidence is collected and judged, it has been said that the investigator leaves the realm of science and enters the realm of the science of the individual, historically called the science of men.
In collecting the information and ideas upon which he based his opinions in his book, The Child’s Song, Capps employed the humanistic approach of relying more on his and others internal, subjective validation system than the more external validation system of science which encourages the reliance on numerically objective measures wherever possible.
Throughout his writings Capps (1992, 1995) refers to statements and ideas that are typically associated with humanistic philosophy. He refers to psychological theorists whose beliefs are based mostly on internal, subjectively validated theoretical speculation (e.g. Sigmund Freud, Carl Rogers, Alfred Adler) rather than empirically sound scientific evidence, and presents their ideas as if those ideas are grounded in empirically based scientific evidence rather than anecdotes.
Capps (1992, 1995) seems to take a hermeneutical, eisegetic approach selectively focusing on expository content which supports his subjective interpretation for its meaning. Contrary to a scientific analyses he provides no empirical information to support his basic theoretical premise. He simply states them as truths.
In his desire to sound the alarm about religion and parents playing a major role in promoting child abuse Capps (1995) reminds his readers about Hans Christen Anderson=s fairy tale in which the emperor was convinced by some tailors to believe he was wearing clothes when he was not, until a small boy in a crowd brought everyone to their senses by yelling out the emperor does not have anything on. Just as the story suggests the boys revelation awakened the people from a mass hypnosis and restored their senses to the reality of the situation, Capps believes he is presenting a scientifically sound expose which reveals religion and parents as promoting child abuse by encouraging punishment of children and advocating a version of the circumstances of Jesus Christ’s birth which encourages child abuse by intentionally hiding what he calls the fact that Jesus was an illegitimate child who suffered substantial psychological abuse.
It seems ironic that Capps should use the analogy of Hans Christian Anderson’s story of the Emperors New Clothes to suggest present day people have been duped by religion, and that his revelations will open their eyes when it appears that he is one of the ones who has been duped. It appears to us that those tailors who duped the king in the story were somehow transported into our present time dimension where they became mental health professionals who duped psychological theorists (and some theologians) into believing a fairy tale in which: (1) punishment is presented as a corruptive rather than a correction procedure, (2) society is told parental punishment causes delinquency and aggression in children when empirical research points the finger at parental permissiveness, (3) punishment free parenting approaches are incorrectly touted as proven to be more effective than punishment based parenting approaches, (4) society is led to believe religion is inherently designed to encourage child abuse.
In a spirit of respect for Capps and others with his convictions, and a desire to present information that could hopefully prompt Capps and others to appreciate why we disagree with their convictions, the purpose of this paper is to take a critical, but respectfully intended, look at Capps’ claims which suggest to us that his position is to a large degree based on the science of men. We believe the foundation for his claims has to have been adopted from and influenced by other individual’s scientific or theological interpretations of the information on which they have selectively focused. This paper addresses six concerns about statements and issues Capps (1995) introduces in his book.
Capps (1995) demonstrates an attraction for incorporating intrinsically based, personally subjective, theoretical speculations in his analyses in preference to more objective, empirically based psychological ideas. Throughout his book Capps (1995) supportively cites individuals advocating Freud’s psychological ideas (e.g. Miller1984, Greven 1991), and repeatedly refers to Freudian speculative concepts such as dissociation, identification, and displacement as if they were scientifically established facts. He also refers to power and revenge dimensions in the family, an issue publicized by Alfred Adler when he was part of Freud’s Vienna circle study group from 1902 to 1911.
As previously mentioned Capps adopted Freuds psychoanalytically based theory as a scientifically sound description of people’s psychologically functioning system. He adopted psychoanalyst Alice Miller’s (1984) version of Freud and her claims that child rearing is guided to ward the satisfaction of parental needs for power and revenge rather than for the welfare of children.
Capps advocated the Freudian ideology that an individual’s life is full of psychodynamically traumatic experiences, which cause that individual to repress those memories, and go through life not realizing the real motivation behind their own actions. He repeats the Freudian belief that traditional child rearing practices established on religiously based uses of punishing and rewarding children results in physically and emotionally abused children who eventually are driven to abuse their own children. He repeatedly refers to psychoanalytic concepts such as dissociation, detachment, and repression to describe the psychological functioning of children.
A concern that scientifically oriented psychological professionals have with the major role Freud’s ideas play in an individual’s psychological and behavioral functioning, according to Capps, is that Freud’s psychological ideas and theories were not founded on empirical evidence nor have they a history of later empirical validation. From 1937 through 1992, repeated scientific reviews of Freud’s theories all came to the same conclusion –Freud’s psychological ideas were based on scientifically unsupported theoretical speculation rather than empirical findings. (e.g. Murphy, Murphy, & Newcomb, 1937; Hilgard, Kubie. & Pumpian-Mindlin, 1952; Kline, 1972; Eysenck, 1985; Torrey, 1992). The conclusions drawn in the previously cited reviews are adequately conveyed by Hilgard et al.=s, (1952) conclusion, anyone who tries to give an honest appraisal of psychoanalysis as a science must be ready to admit that as it is stated it is mostly bad science, that the bulk of the articles in its journals cannot be defended as research publications at all.
During the time Miller was writing and expounding on her personal version of Freudian based psychodynamic explanations of human behavior, Bergin and Garfield (1971) edited the Handbook of Psychotherapy and Behavior Change which was then the top selling college textbook for training clinical psychologists. The chapter on psychoanalysis was written by psychoanalysts, Lester Luborsky and Donald Spence. Their opening statement to the chapter was:
Quantitative psychoanalytic research remains little known.
Rare is the psychoanalyst who knows of any of these studies,
and even rarer is the psychoanalyst whose practice has been altered by them. An example of the unscientific speculative basis of Freud=s psychological ideas is the explanation for neurosis that he gave in 1935, just four years before his death:
All that I am asserting is that symptoms of these patients (neurotic) are not mentally determined or removable by analysis, but that they must be regarded as direct toxic consequences of disturbed sexual chemical processes, [specifically from] excessive masturbation and too numerous nocturnal emissions (Torrey, 1974).
Freud’s theoretical speculations about controlling forces for women and children=s behavior lack scientific validation as much as his claims that masturbation causes neurosis. Torrey’s (1992) scientific review of Freudian theory notes Freud theorized that the female never fully accepts her lack of a penis. He consequently portrayed her as unable to shake a chronic sense of body inferiority. For Freud, women were not merely handmaidens for men, but anatomically and intellectually inferior beings.
Capps (1995) adopts Freud’s psychological premise that the focus of child-rearing is not inherently directed toward the child’s welfare but toward fulfilling a parents needs for power and revenge. Freud (and Capps) claim these deviant needs are ultimately traceable to punishment experiences the parents themselves had in their childhood. They also claim adult problems are consequences of childhood experiences and getting adults talking about and understanding their childhood experiences (often painful experiences of physical punishment and religious torment) that are suppressed vividly in the child’s unconscious and carried throughout the child’s adulthood is the key to adults resolving their psychological problems.
Capps (1995) strongly argued that everyday childhood experiences such as toilet training and even mild or medium intense physical punishments are abusive in the minds of children. Torrey (1992) reviewed all published research aimed at testing Freud’s theoretical ideas, particularly research designed to empirically support or refute Freud’s psychological ideas about women and his main theory of human personality development. According to Torrey, Freud claimed punitive childhood experiences are the basis for personal problems including sadomasochism, aggression and delinquency. These claims of Freud were not based on substantive empirical research.
Freud - Punishment caused Aggression in Children
While Freud must be given credit, more than any other single person, for prompting the discipline of psychology to study the motivational dimension of personality, he also deserves some credit for initiating what could be described as the biggest hoax in the psychology of learning, a hoax that continues to this day. Based on anecdotal information, the writings of early philosophers such as Plato, and little empirical validation, early psychoanalysts identified parental punishment as a detrimental procedure prompted by religious encouragement to try to bring about behavior change in children. A close look at the large wave of research on delinquency and aggressive behavior in children published in the 1950's identified parental permissiveness rather than parental punishment to be the key family discipline related factor for causing delinquency and aggression.
In the 1920's and thirties a substantial rise in American youth juvenile delinquency prompted the mental health profession to initiate some of the largest and most in depth investigations designed to identify causal factors for delinquency and anti-social aggressive behavior in children. An additional practical goal of those investigations was to identify programs that would be effective in reducing and preventing delinquency and aggression. The 1950s was a decade during which some of the most frequently cited studies on this issue were published.
Glueck and Glueck (1950) tracked 500 juvenile delinquent boys and 500 non delinquent (control) boys for several decades. They monitored over 180 potentially causal psychological, sociological, and constitutional factors including number of parents and siblings in families, criminal records of parents and siblings, physical attributes, psychological dimensions such as IQ, and discipline factors. Besides reporting delinquent youths were substantially less likely to be church attenders, Glueck and Glueck reported 97% of the boys in juvenile detention centers came from families where mothers provided inadequate supervision and often left their sons to their own resources. (This data tends to validate Proverbs 29:15 in the Bible which says, the rod and reproof give wisdom: but a child left to himself bringeth his mother to shame.
Additionally Glueck and Glueck (1950) reported: (1) 57% of boys in detention centers come from homes where mothers are lax and permissive while only 4.4% of boys in detention come from homes where mothers were overly strict, (2) parents of delinquent boys were twice as likely to be inconsistent and erratic with their discipline than parents of non delinquent boys, (3) 91% of delinquent boys kept late hours as compared to 7% of non delinquent boys, (4) parents of delinquent boys were twice as likely to use physical punishment as parents of non delinquent boys,
(5) parents of delinquent and non delinquent boys were equally likely to punish boys by taking away privileges or threatening and scolding. Sears, Maccoby, and Levin (1957) studied 379 families and reported a higher correlation between aggressive behavior in children and permissiveness level of the parent than between aggressive behavior and parental use of physical punishment. Bandura and Walters (1959) replicated Sears et al.’s (1957) study on older boys and reported both parental permissiveness and parental use of physical punishment were related to increased aggression in adolescents.
Nye (1958) studied over 2200 children twelve to seventeen years old and reported parental use of corporal punishment was not related to increased juvenile delinquency, and teenagers attending church were much less likely to be delinquent. McCord and McCord (1959) presented data on the eighteen year old study of 650 boys who were eleven years old at the start of the study. They reported delinquent boys were twice as likely to come from homes with lax and permissive parents. According to McCord and McCord, A lax discipline resulted in a relatively high proportion of criminals. In particular, laxity produced a large number of property, violent, and sexual criminals. McCord and McCord also reported that a non punitive, talk-it-out counseling program for preventing delinquency (the main purpose of the study) showed little evidence for being effective. Their findings were consistent with Lipton, Martinson, and Wilks (1975) review of thirty one non punitive counseling based treatment studies carried out from 1945 to 1967. Lipton et al. (1975) reported Freudian type psychotherapy had essentially no positive effect in reducing recidivism rates of delinquents. On the other hand, research studies began showing up in the 1950s and 60s demonstrating reinforcement-punishment approaches were effective in reducing delinquent and aggressive behavior in children (Williams, 1959; Boardman, 1962; Ruso, 1964; Wahler, Winkel, Peterson, & Morrison, 1965; Hawkins, Peterson, Schweid, & Bijou, 1966; Bernal, Duryee, Pruett, & Burns, 1968; Alexander & Parsons, 1973).
It is significant to note that all of these studies looking for factors that encourage aggression and delinquency found lax permissive parenting highly related to aggressive and delinquent behavior in children while only two (Sears, et al., 1957; Bandura and Walters, 1959) found evidence suggesting parental use of physical punishment was related to aggressive behavior.1 The unusually strong influence that scientifically unsupported theories were having at that time on mental health professionals is illustrated by the fact that both Sears et al. (1957)
and Bandura and Walters (1959) emphasized physical punishment more than permissive parenting as needing to be addressed to solve delinquency problems, when in fact both of those studies showed permissiveness to be the stronger cause. Surprisingly, Bandura and Walters (1959) recommendation for correcting delinquency was to put the delinquents in an environment with few rules and requirements (a permissive environment) and treat them with a Freudian type of therapy.
Contrary to psychoanalytic (and Capps) claims, these studies indicate parental permissiveness is much more responsible for delinquency and aggression in children than is parental use of physical punishment.
According to Torrey (1992): (1) Freuds central assumption that woman are envious of men=s penises had been scientifically shown to be false, (2) as early as 1905 Freud began to realize scientific evidence was refuting his theory so he began to deny the value of scientific validation, (3) there is not a single empirical study verifying claims that repressed childhood experiences typically produce aggression and delinquent personality traits later in life, (4) the notable researcher, Eysenck (1985), stated Freud was without a doubt a genius, not of science but of propaganda, not of rigorous proof but of persuasion, not of the design of experiment but of literary art. His place is not, as he (Freud) claimed with Copernicus and Darwin, but with Hans Christian Anderson and the brothers Grim, tellers of fairy tales,,(5) there is virtually no cross-cultural evidence that supports Freuds theory regarding the importance of repressed childhood experiences in shaping adult personality, and (6) the failure of both direct and indirect studies to support Freudian theory of development has been an ongoing embarrassment to Freud’s followers.
1. Sears (1961) retested his subjects five years later to find only permissive parenting (not physical punishment) still showed up being related to aggression in children. Yarrow, Campbell, & Burton (1968) and Schuck (1974) carried out more in depth analyses of Sears et al.=s (1957) data to find parental use of physical punishment was not really related to childhood aggression.
According to the empirical evidence identified so far: (1) Capps (1995) predicated his claims of parents and religion being inherently predisposed to abuse children upon scientifically unsupported, speculative psychological theories, (2) scientific evidence indicates parental permissiveness is more responsible for delinquency and aggression in children than is parental punishment, and (3) the scientific evidence showed punishment based discipline approaches were effective in changing delinquent and aggressive behavior while Freud=s non punitive talk- it-out
approach was not.
Punishment Free Parenting: Humanistic vs Scientific validation
Capps (1995) strongly argues for both a punishment free parenting approach and a punishment free religious interpretation of the Bible. His interpretation of the scientific support for his personal convictions is so strong that he contends, individuals believing in Biblical literalism and parental use of punishment should not be tolerated within a congregation. Capps says he will not offer more scientifically supported alternatives because he does not have the expertise in child rearing to propose better alternatives. If the scientific evidence reported later in this article is to be believed, having more expertise in child rearing would not help Capps identify more scientifically sound alternatives to reinforcement-punishment behavior change procedures, because science has not identified any that are more effective.
Capps is certainly not the first person to strongly condemn parental use of punishment and call for a punishment free parenting approach . Sigmund Freud, Alfred Adler, and Carl Rogers were three prominent psychological theorists, all condemning parental use of punishment and expressing strong personal convictions about the detrimental effects of punishment. None of the three ever defended their convictions against punishment by presenting a body of empirical evidence showing punishment to be detrimental. All three took the humanistic position that the way to really know if something is true lies within each individual rather than through science’s objective, external validation approach. Each believed their internal subjective evaluation system was superior to scientific validation. None of the three believed in a living God, nor believed the writing of the Bible was done under the supervision and inspiration of God.
Being defined as one of the fathers of contemporary humanism (often called the third force in psychology) Rogers (1961) made no secret of his position that many psychological truths lay outside the boundaries of scientific methods, and could only be understood by means of each persons internal, subjective, validating system. Torrey (1992) recounts a situation when a psychologist wrote Freud to tell him that he had found scientific support for Freud’s Theory. Freud responded testily that his theory needed no validation. Adler started the International Journal of Individual Psychology in 1935 and did not allow nomothetic type research to be published in it.
In essence, then, psychological support for Capps’ argument advocating a punishment free parenting environment is based on the scientifically refuted speculative theories of three men, all three of whom: (1) did not believe in God or an inspirational basis for the Bible, (2) guided their theoretical endeavors on the humanistic approach of relying on an inner subjective intuitive validation system more than an external, objective empirically based validation system, (3) carried out no empirical research on the role of punishment in parenting or learning, (4) provided or referred to no substantive body of empirical research to show either punishment essentially produces a substantial detrimental effect on parenting and learning or non punitive behavior change procedures are more effective in parenting and other learning situations, (5) never produced or referred to a scientifically validated working model that demonstrated a successfully propagated punishment free parenting system in society, (6) never produced any scientific evidence to allay the realistic concerns that substantially distorting Mother Natures inherently balanced reinforcement-punishment system would have catastrophic results, (7) never produced a substantive body of empirical research showing punishment to be a detrimental and inherently corruptive rather than a correctional procedure, and (8) never developed a punishment free parenting system that was scientifically shown to be more effective than a biblically based parenting system that incorporates the use of punishment.
While most critics (including Capps) of punishment based parenting systems have not clearly identified what a punishment free parenting system should or would entail, Thomas Gordon (1970), and some others, have. A close look at empirical research efforts to scientifically validate Gordon=s (1970) parenting system based on Roger’s punishment free ideas does not provide support for the claims of it being effective. In 1962 Thomas Gordon began giving parenting workshops on what he called Parent Effectiveness Training, a non punishment parenting approach based on the psychological ideas of Carl Rogers. In 1970, Gordon authored Parent Effectiveness Training (PET), a parenting book that claimed to be the Tested new way to raise responsible children. According to Gordon, punishment can be discarded forever in disciplining children, and I mean all kinds of punishment, not just the physical kind. Gordon claims PET is based on improvement for parenting methods used two thousand years ago (reference to Biblical parenting procedures). Gordon (1970) includes no research evidence to support his claim that PET is a more effective parenting approach for producing behavior change than is a Biblically based reinforcement- punishment system. Fifteen years after Gordon began teaching PET workshops, Rinn and Markle (1977) reviewed all published research on PET and concluded the research does not show PET to be an effective behavior change approach. Approximately twenty years after Gordon began his PET workshops a task force commissioned by Educational Testing Service (Weber, Crawford, Roff, and Robinson, 1983) reviewed the research on PET and reported, Although (communicating)acceptance (PET) is a widely advocated strategy, an examination of the literature yields little empirical support for its desirability or effectiveness. (Weber et al. report there is substantial research findings showing reinforcement and punishment are effective behavior change procedures)
Dembo, Sweitzer, and Lauritzen (1985) reviewed the research literature on PET and concurred with Rinn and Markle (1977) and Weber et al. (1983) in reporting PET was not effective in changing children’s behavior. Dembo et al. also reported none of the studies showed PET to increase children’s feelings of self-worth. Due to the fact most punishment free advocates (e.g. Ellison, 1996) claim such an approach creates a more healthy psycho social development which will show up as an improved feeling of self-worth, the failure of PET to improve self-worth provided additional evidence that punishment free parenting does not live up to the claims made about it.
It is important to keep in mind that the call for a punishment free society is not new. That idea has repeatedly been resurrected in theory at least, since the time of the early Greeks. However, no one has ever developed a working model on this earth. It is concerning to scientifically minded individuals that mental health professionals would push to make such a dramatic change without first testing it out.
Capps (1995) describes a couple of situations where individuals recount being spanked by their parents and then saying the spanking made them more determined to continue to misbehave. Capps (1995) says, proponents of physical punishment are wrong when they say punishment will effect positive changes in children’s behavior. While Capps (1995) cites a couple of uncontrolled anecdotal situations and concludes punishment cannot be instrumental in making positive changes in children’s behavior, he would be hard pressed to read any of the top selling Psychology of Learning college textbooks over the past thirty years and honestly draw that conclusion from the research presented. Since the 1960s, college textbooks on the psychology of Learning have almost unanimously claimed reinforcement and punishment procedures are two of the most important and effective behavior change procedures in terms of the learning process. Azrin and Holz (1966) reviewed the bulk of punishment research pertaining to learning and noted there was no method for reducing or eliminating misbehavior that could match punishment in terms of effectiveness. Hulse, Deese, and Egeth authored the nationally number one selling college textbook on learning in 1975 and concluded their coverage of punishment with the following statement, From this literature, one can gain the strong impression that punishment is a maladaptive, ineffective, and wasteful technique to use in the establishment and guidance of behavior. Such is patently not the case.....(p. 201).
Walters and Grusec's (1977) book reviewed all the punishment research on both humans and non humans up until that time and looked at both primary and side effects. Their final comment in the book was, A.....a good case can be made that punishment is a more effective technique for behavior change than is reinforcement. And this leads us to an inescapable conclusion: Punishment will always be a necessary tool for behavior change.
Axelrod and Apsche (1983) reviewed the research reported with only humans as subjects looking at both primary and side effects, and made the following statement, The relationship between the child and adult who administers punishment does not deteriorate but in fact improves as long as the adult is the source of positive experiences as well as punishment (Bucher & Lovaas, 1968; Lovaas, et al., 1965; Merbaum, 1973; Simmons and Lovaas, 1969; Tate and Baroff, 1966) (p. 290). It is important to note that Walters & Grusec (1977), Axelrod and Apsche (1983), nor any psychology of learning textbook makes a distinction between punishment and discipline. Punishment free advocates often make a big distinction between punishment and discipline, claiming discipline is good, but punishment is detrimental.
The fact that a number of mental health professionals have authored articles making unsupported claims against punishment is exemplified by Axelrod and Apsche’s (1983) review of punishment research where they talk about addressing claims about punishment effects:
In at least one account (Maurer, 1974) , punishment is credited with causing juvenile delinquency, hyperactivity, anti-social aggression, vandalism, minimal brain damage, and homicide. Evidence for such claims, except in the case of aggression is non existent...but evidence that physical punishment is a significant variable in the determination of anti-social lifestyles of criminals proportions has not been obtained. (Axelrod & Apsche, 1983, p. 291-291).
When looking at punishment research where punishment was experimentally applied to human subjects (rather than ex post facto punishment research having a host of uncontrolled secondary variables) the data indicate punishment was very effective in changing behavior without producing undesirable side effects, including aggression and anti-social behavior. Axelrod & Apsche (1983) conclude:
The undesirable side effects reviewed here come from a relatively small proportion of all the studies on the therapeutic use of punishment. Even when allowance is made for the probable under reporting of negative side effects due to editorial sanctions, it is interesting to note how few studies in the literature contain observations that would suggest clinical or ethical problems. In considering the studies where undesirable side effects were observed, the overall impression that results is one of mild surprise that serious side effects are seen so infrequently...Most of the undesirable side effects described lasted only for a few minutes or days, were quickly responsive to treatment if
they did not disappear spontaneously, and constituted a relatively small and ethically justified price to pay in return for the elimination of much more detrimental behaviors (Axelrod & Apsche, 1983, p. 300-301).
Axelrod and Apsche (1983) cited over 600 published articles on punishment, most of which involved the therapeutic application of punishment where punishment was consistently applied without including demeaning comments or physical injuries. It was the 1960s when applied research studying the effects of reinforcement and punishment really exploded. Schwitzgebel and Kolb (1964) successfully employed reinforcement and punishment procedures to induce behavior changes among adolescent delinquents. A three-year follow up of their subjects showed a significant reduction in frequency and severity of crime compared to a matched-pair control group. Baer (1962) employed reinforcement and punishment techniques to eliminate thumb sucking in young children. Williams (1959) employed reinforcement removal procedures therapeutically eliminate tantrum behavior in a third grader. Madsen, Becker, and Thomas (1968) compared the effectiveness of explaining rules, using praise, and ignoring in controlling classroom misbehavior and demonstrated verbal reinforcement was much more effective than just talking things out in five different elementary school classrooms.
During this time experimental research studies demonstrating the effectiveness of consequences were carried out in prisons and detention homes (Cohen, Filipczak, and Bis, 1970;Phillips, 1968), mental institutions (Schaefer and Martin, 1966), institutions for the retarded (Whaley and Tough, 1970), outpatient clinics (Bernal, Duryee, Pruett, and Burns, 1968), public
schools and special remedial classrooms, and home settings (Hawkins, Peterson, Schweid, and Bijou, 1966; Patterson, McNeal, Hawkins, and Phelps, 1967).
Since the reviews of punishment mentioned here, there has not been an in depth review of punishment research that has reported contradictory findings. We could find no review of punishment put together by punishment free advocates that referred to even fifty studies, let alone the over 1000 punishment studies which have been part of the review presented here. In 1991, Gordon published what he called an in depth review of the punishment literature claiming his reviewed literature demonstrated punishment was an ineffective and detrimental behavior change procedure.
However, there are several concerns with Gordon’s review. Gordon does not include any of the published reviews (of which there are several) of literature showing his PET is not effective. The one review article Gordon does cite, Levant (1973), includes only three methodologically sound studies, and non of them showing PET created any positive behavior changes in children. Gordon does not include any references to the reviews on punishment being an effective behavior change procedure. Gordon’s (1991) book includes 103 references, less than twenty of which include any substantive empirical data. Most of his references are opinion based books and opinion based journal articles, unpublished theses and dissertations, and unpublished papers and talks given at conventions. Gordon cites numerous articles and books that present information from nonprofessional sources such as Gilmartin (1979) who quotes a TV talk show host, Art Linkletter. Only one of Gordon=s cited articles suggesting punishment was ineffective were controlled experiments where punishment was being therapeutically applied.
Gordon cites Sears (1961) as presenting data indicating twelve year old boys with punitive parents had tendencies toward self-punishment and suicidal tendencies. Actually, the theme of Sears’ (1961) article was his data showing parental punishment was not significantly related to aggressive behavior in children, but that parental permissiveness was.
Gordon most frequently refers to Straus, Gelles, and Steinmetz (1980) survey research on child abuse. The data in Straus et al.=s (1980) report is highly speculative at best. It is replete with data that is subjectively embellished. For example, Straus et al. (1980) makes the following statement, Since we interviewed mothers in half the families, and fathers in the other half of the families, the number of children who had hit a parent during the year might actually be double. This means one out of three children between the ages of three and seventeen hit their parents each year (p.119). First , they say it might be, then report it as fact.
Straus et al. (1980) are claiming parental punishment of children causes aggressive, antisocial behavior in children. They present data suggesting the more punitive parents are, the more aggressive children are. If Straus et al. (1980) book was intended as a scientific analysis, one would expect them to refer to the substantial research on aggressiveness in children earlier cited in this article indicating child aggression is more determined by parental permissiveness than punishment. Straus et al. made no attempt to integrate their information with past empirical research that seems to contradict their findings.
Capps (1995) refers to Greven (1991) who did include a number of well respected empirical research studies dealing with punishment, aggression and delinquency. However, Greven selectively picked empirical and non empirical information to support the conclusions of his subjective, intuitive validation system. For example, Greven (1991) addressed the issue of causes of delinquency and aggression in children and cited McCord and McCord’s (1959) statement a combination of lax or erratically punitive discipline....greatly increases the tendency to criminality (p. 102), to reinforce his claim that parental punishment prompts criminality and aggression. If one really stops and looks at what he quoted, he is actually supporting the idea that correctly employed punishment reduces criminality. Saying both lax punishment (in other words permissiveness) and erratic punishment (incorrectly used punishment) increases criminality in no way validates Greven’s condemnation of punishment. Instead of picking quotes like Greven (1991) which can be confusing, we refer to McCord and McCord’s (1959) clearly worded statement claiming their data indicates parental punishment does not produce delinquency, Awe found no evidence that consistently punitive discipline leads to delinquency (p. 78).
Additionally Greven (1991) apparently felt it was not worth mentioning to tell his readers that the goal of the 18 year research project studying over 650 youths (eleven years old when the project began) was to demonstrate a non punitive, talking-it-out counselor approach, (something Greven argues for) in dealing with youth would be more effective in reducing and preventing delinquency and aggression. However, McCord and McCord’s (1959) data was clear in showing that approach did not work when they concluded, The Cambridge-Somerville Youth Study had not filled its major goal of preventing crime; they found no substantial difference in crime rate or personality between the boys who had undergone treatment (experienced the talk-it-out approach) and those who had not (p. 19).
However, McCord (1978) did a thirty year follow up and found the youth who had received Freudian and Rogerian counseling and psychotherapy had been convicted of significantly more crimes than the control youth who did not receive psychotherapy. In fact, an in depth analysis revealed that longer treatment increased the chances of later criminal behavior and more intensive treatment increased the chance of later criminal behavior.
Greven’s (1991) repeated tendency to selectively pick certain data and statements indicates he had previously adopted the no punishment theoretical speculations of Freud, Adler, or Rogers and has attempted to represent his beliefs as scientifically sound.
It is apparent Greven (1991) has adopted some version of Freud’s psycho-dynamic theory when he stated, AI am confident that once we begin to ask questions concerning early childhood punishments - and take the answers seriously - we will recognize the enormity of the realm within our adult psyche that remains in bondage to ancient punishments (p.7). This statement also makes it clear that the version of Freud’s theory that he has adopted did not include empirical research evidence to back up the theory. While some non punishment advocates admit that some punishment can have a constructive influence on individuals, Greven (1991) takes the all-or-nothing position in saying all punishment is bad, But as this entire book will seek to make clear, there actually is no way such a distinction (some punishment is constructive and some punishment is corruptive) can be sustained.
Nowhere does Greven (1991) point to empirical evidence showing a non punishment model has been functionally operative in the past or present. Greven (1991) does describe several
non punitive behavior change procedures (e.g. logical consequences, setting boundaries and rules, reasoning, discussion) which he says could be tested someday and be shown to be effective. Apparently, Greven (1991) is not aware that non punishment parenting approaches have been taught and tested for almost forty years with empirical evidence (presented earlier) indicating they are not effective behavior change systems and they do not develop children with better psycho-social development than reinforcement-punishment approaches.
Incidentally, Benjamin Spock, a devout believer in Freudian theory and author of the top selling child care book (1938, 1957, 1989), initiated a funded research project in 1959 with families expecting their first child. According to Torrey (1992), The study, probably the most ambitious ever undertaken to prove that child rearing based on Freud’s theory can ameliorate developmental problems, had completely negative results...The results of the study provided no support whatsoever for Freud’s theory and, not surprisingly, little of the data was ever published (p. 134-35). Spock acknowledged that despite the intense psychoanalytically oriented counseling by eleven eminent psychiatrists, The children in the study had just as many problems as any other children... Providing psychoanalytically oriented counseling for the mothers...was supposed to make child-rearing problems easier, but instead made the problems more difficult (Torrey, 1992, p. 134). Individuals who claim punishment is corruptive rather than corrective seem to have a difficult, if not impossible, time producing scientifically sound evidence showing non punitive alternatives actually work.
While Mother Nature’s scheme of behavioral control inherently includes being rewarded for behaviors that increase the survival values of the species and being punished for negative behaviors that are detrimental to the species for all of her animals that are endowed with discernment capabilities that are necessary to make successful choices, the punishment free advocates condemn punishment as a corruptive rather than a corrective behavior change procedure. Using the naive logic that all sexual intercourse experiences should be made illegal because rapists use such experiences self indulgently, punishment free advocates condemn all situations where punishment is designed to correct misbehavior as Mother Nature uses it because some individuals inflict pain and unpleasantness on children to satisfy their own self-indulgent desires. Society does not make the use of all medications illegal because some people abuse medications that are a benefit to society when used properly. Society identifies the limits under which the use of the medications are beneficial, then implements laws and regulations to restrict only the inappropriate uses of those medications. Punishment, taking medications, and sexual intercourse are all behavioral experiences which can benefit society when they are experienced under appropriate circumstances. All these can be severely detrimental experiences when they occur outside identified positive limits. Society could benefit more by having the mental health profession scientifically identify the role and limits of punishment use rather than condemn punishment because of scientifically unsupported theoretical speculations and the possibility of it being used inappropriately.
In his book, A Child’s Song, Capps (1995) mentioned his presidential address to the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion was on the theme that religion and parents were inherently predisposed toward prompting and propagating the physical abuse of children. He said he was surprised that so many individuals failed to accept and appreciate the truths he believed he was presenting. This paper addressed four issues of concern. First, Capps predicated his contention on Freud’s psychological theories which not only are based on scientifically unsupported theoretical speculations, but come from a humanistic validating system within Freud that also prompted him to claim neurosis is due to masturbation, and women are physically and intellectually inferior to men, envy men having penises. Second, Capps adopted and publicized Freudian based anecdotal evidence which argues delinquency and aggression in children is due to parental punishment when the scientific evidence points much more strongly to parental permissiveness. Third, Capps condemns the use of parental punishment when empirical research shows punishment to be effective while punishment free parenting systems have been taught in workshops for forty years without producing substantive scientific evidence that they create positive changes in children’s behavior, without a substantial number of communities and school districts switching over to that approach, and without there presently or historically being any working models that have functionally survived for any length of time. Fourth, Capps adopted and strongly advocated the humanist position that punishment is a corruptive rather than a correctional behavior change procedure when the overwhelming bulk of scientific evidence presented in leaving psychology textbooks shows punishment to be one of the most important factors for positive behavior change.
While the present authors felt Capps’ talk and book were substantially flawed on both theological and scientifically based psychological issues, this paper focused primarily on psychological issues. Murray (1998) reported on a session presented at APA’s 1998 Annual Convention where psychologists Anthony Biglan and James Alexander were encouraging psychologists to counter the currently popular mythical notions that all forms of punishment are bad by publicizing what the scientific research really shows. Bigler reminded the audience that the mythical notions about punishment are based on unproven psychological theories, the media, and popular parenting books. Capps (1995) book is a reminder that members of society often have a very difficult time distinguishing between science and the science of men in the psychological arena of parenting. Members of the mental health profession do not help the situation by letting their investigator bias have free reign when evaluating situations.
It is also a reminder that members of the mental health profession themselves have a problem with that issue. We members of the mental health profession perhaps over represent ourselves concerning our use and reliance on empirical research findings. At the time in the early 1970s when punishment free parenting advocates were claiming punishment based parenting was scientifically discredited while punishment free parenting was scientifically proven, few practicing mental health professionals showed any interest in empirical research findings on the matter. Bergin and Strupp (1972) surveyed clinical psychologists and found most reported they made judgments about the efficacy of their procedures on the basis of their own personal experience rather than empirical evidence. Cohen (1976) reported 40% of mental health professionals believe no research exists that is relevant to their practice. That trend does not appear to be changing as more recent studies (e.g. Bartkowski, 1995; Ellison, 1996; Gershoff, Miller, & Holden, 1999) comparing punishment based parenting to punishment free parenting approaches refer to those mental health professionals advocating scientifically unsupported punishment free parenting as mainstream childrearing experts.
We believe the information presented in this article indicates Capps’ (1995) claims about parents and religion being inherently disposed toward child abuse are based on the science of men and lacks substantive, scientific credibility.
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