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。

The preponderance of evidence points away from corporal punishment, which the European Union and the United Nations have recommended against, but the data suggest that most parents, especially those in the U.S., still spank their kids. Based on his international data, collected by surveying more than 17,000 college students in various countries, Straus found that countries with higher GDP tended to be those where corporal punishment was used less often. In the U.S., the tendency to hit also varies with income, along with geography and culture; it's most common among African-American families, Southern families, parents who were spanked as children themselves and those who identify themselves as conservative Christians.

欧盟与联合国方面从另一个角度提出，这些证据除了可证明体罚会有何种后果之外，更为有力地反映出的是现今的某些问题：多数家长，尤其是美国的父母，对体罚他们的小孩仍是理直气壮。从斯特劳斯在世界各国家得到的 17000名学生的调查结果里面，亦发现一个国家的GDP越高，这里的家长越少体罚孩子。在美国，体罚现象跟家庭的收入状况、地理和文化因素有关。在亚裔家庭、南部家庭里面更为常见。如果家长小时侯也被体罚过，或者家长自认为是保守的基督教徒，也更可能体罚孩子。

But overall the percentage of parents who spank has been steadily declining. Straus says that in 1968, 94% of Americans told surveyors they agreed with spanking. By 2005, the proportion who said it is "sometimes O.K. to spank a child" had fallen to 72%, although most researchers believe the actual incidence of corporal punishment is higher.

不过总的来说，体罚小孩的家长还是越来越少了。斯特劳斯说，1968年的时候，有94%的美国人认可体罚。到2005年，同意“有时候体罚孩子是可以的”的人占的比例下降到72%，虽然有些研究者认为实际上体罚事件发生的更频繁了。

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