Brandeis University, Waltham, MA, USA.
J Interpers Violence. 2020 Aug;35(15-16):2687-2710. doi: 10.1177/0886260517704227. Epub 2017 Apr 20.
Ethnicity has been examined as a putative moderator between parents' use of corporal punishment and children's externalizing behaviors. Yet, the reasons for this potential ethnic-level moderator have not been fully examined. The primary objective of this study was to examine whether the effect of corporal punishment on aggression is ethnic-specific using major racial groups inside and outside the U.S. samples and how the mean levels of cohesion in family relationships as found in different ethnic groups moderate the association between mothers' use of corporal punishment and children's aggression. A total of 729 mothers who had children aged 7 to 13 years were sampled from five ethnic groups (i.e., European American, African American, Hispanic American, Korean, and Chinese). Several hypotheses were tested to examine the moderating effect of ethnic-level, family cohesion on the relation of corporal punishment to children's aggression. As expected, the mean level of family cohesion was significantly different across ethnicities. Consistent results across parallel multilevel and fixed effect models showed that high corporal punishment was associated with more aggression in all ethnicities, but there was a significant variation in the association across ethnicities, and the variation was explained by ethnic-level family cohesion. There were weaker associations between corporal punishment and child aggression among ethnic groups with high family cohesion and stronger associations among ethnic groups with low family cohesion. Ethnic/cultural variation in this study emphasizes the importance of understanding family environment of diverse ethnic groups when evaluating the influence of corporal punishment on child behavior in different ethnic/cultural contexts.
种族被认为是父母使用体罚与儿童外化行为之间的潜在调节因素。然而，这种潜在的种族调节因素的原因尚未得到充分研究。本研究的主要目的是使用美国内外的主要种族群体来检验体罚对攻击性的影响是否具有种族特异性，以及不同种族群体中发现的家庭关系凝聚力的平均水平如何调节母亲使用体罚与儿童攻击性之间的关系。从五个种族群体（即欧裔美国人、非裔美国人、西班牙裔美国人、韩国人和中国人）中抽取了 729 名有 7 至 13 岁子女的母亲作为样本。提出了几个假设来检验家庭凝聚力的种族水平对体罚与儿童攻击性关系的调节作用。正如预期的那样，家庭凝聚力的平均水平在不同种族之间存在显著差异。平行多层次和固定效应模型的一致结果表明，高体罚与所有种族的更多攻击性有关，但这种关联在种族之间存在显著差异，这种差异可以用种族水平的家庭凝聚力来解释。在家庭凝聚力高的种族群体中，体罚与儿童攻击性之间的关联较弱，而在家庭凝聚力低的种族群体中，关联较强。本研究中的种族/文化差异强调了在不同种族/文化背景下评估体罚对儿童行为的影响时，了解不同种族群体家庭环境的重要性。
