The effects of spanking on psychosocial outcomes: revisiting genetic and environmental covariation

Background There is a vast literature on the negative associations between spanking in childhood and various psychosocial developmental outcomes; yet, control for potential genetic confounds is rare. Objectives The current research aimed to provide probable ranges of estimates of the degree to which genetic and nonshared environmental covariation could explain the reported phenotypic effects in the Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor, Family Relations 65:490–501, 2016a, Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor, Journal of Family Psychology 30:453, 2016b) meta-analysis of spanking. Participants and setting. The analytic sample for Study 1 was secured from the Children of the National Longitudinal Survey of Youth (CNLSY) and consisted of 2868 respondents (siblings and half-siblings). The data for Study 2 were secured from the published literature. Methods Study 1 analyzed the data from the CNLSY using univariate ACE models and bivariate Cholesky decomposition models. Study 2 used simulation modeling to provide a summative evaluation of the psychosocial effects of spanking with regard to genetic and nonshared environmental covariation. Results Study 1 replicated previous work showing that associations between spanking and outcomes of delinquency, depression, and alcohol use were explained by moderate-to-large degrees of genetic covariation and small-to-moderate degrees of nonshared environmental covariation. Simulation estimates from Study 2 suggest that genetic covariation accounts for a substantial amount of the phenotypic effect between spanking and psychosocial outcomes (≈60–80%), with the remainder attributable to nonshared environmental covariation (≈0–40%). Conclusions Results of the current research indicate that continued work on the effects of spanking is best served by behavior genetic research on a broader range of outcomes than what is currently available.