Corporal Punishment and Elevated Neural Response to Threat in Children

Abstract

Spanking remains common around the world, despite evidence linking corporal punishment to detrimental child outcomes. This study tested whether children (M age = 11.60) who were spanked (N = 40) exhibited altered neural function in response to stimuli that suggest the presence of an environmental threat compared to children who were not spanked (N = 107). Children who were spanked exhibited greater activation in multiple regions of the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC), including dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, dorsomedial PFC, bilateral frontal pole, and left middle frontal gyrus in response to fearful relative to neutral faces compared to children who were not spanked. These findings suggest that spanking may alter neural responses to environmental threats in a manner similar to more severe forms of maltreatment.

The effect of spanking on early social‐emotional skills

“…These effects are likely stronger when exposure happens in early childhood due to heightened neural plasticity (Berens & Nelson, 2019). Nascent evidence is consistent with these ideas, as children who were spanked in their first years of life exhibited greater activation in multiple circuits of the mPFC in response to stimuli that suggest the presence of an environmental threat relative to children who were not spanked (Cuartas et al, 2021). These findings also support the predictions from the social learning, social information, and attachment perspectives, by indicating that children who are spanked might devote greater attentional resources to processing threats in the environment (i.e., hypervigilance), have more difficulties engaging in effortful attempts to regulate emotional responses and regulating their behavior, and find it more challenging to resolve conflicts relative to children who are not spanked.…”

“…Social learning, social information processing, and attachment perspectives posit that spanking can undermine children's SE development, specifically their capacity to resolve social conflicts and regulate their emotions and behaviors. In addition, recent evidence showed that spanking is linked to atypical brain functioning in the medial frontal gyrus (MFG), dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dPFC), bilateral frontal pole, and other regions of medial and lateral PFC (Cuartas et al, 2021). The MFG is often involved during effortful regulation of emotional responses and suppression of negative emotion (Goldin et al, 2008), whereas the dPFC and bilateral frontal pole tend to be engaged in social‐cognitive processes and social information processing (Buckner & DiNicola, 2019).…”

“…The MFG is often involved during effortful regulation of emotional responses and suppression of negative emotion (Goldin et al, 2008), whereas the dPFC and bilateral frontal pole tend to be engaged in social‐cognitive processes and social information processing (Buckner & DiNicola, 2019). Altogether, increased activation in these brain regions indicate that children who were spanked might devote more attentional resources to processing and find it more difficult to engage in effortful regulation strategies in response to neutral or negative‐valanced stimuli, likely in service of understanding and readily responding to potential threats in the environment (Cuartas et al, 2021). As such, it is not surprising that exploratory analyses revealed that the association between spanking and SE skills was largely driven by emotional awareness, emotion regulation, and conflict resolution skills.…”

“…More recently, it has been hypothesized that spanking might also impact SE development through neural mechanisms, considering theoretical predictions from the dimensional model of adversity (Cuartas et al, 2021; Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2014). The dimensional model posits that exposure to experiences involving harm or threat of harm to the child (e.g., spanking, witnessing intimate partner violence, sexual abuse) will have qualitatively similar influences on emotional and neural development that scale in relation to the severity of the threat experienced (Sheridan & McLaughlin, 2014).…”

Contributions of Emotion Regulation and Brain Structure and Function to Adolescent Internalizing Problems and Stress Vulnerability During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Longitudinal Study

“…Participants were drawn from a longitudinal study of children followed from age 3 and a caregiver, with the initial aim of studying the development of self-regulation in childhood ( 42 ). At age 11 to 12 years, between June 2017 and October 2018, before the pandemic, participants completed a baseline evaluation as part of a study examining mechanisms linking adverse childhood experiences with psychopathology ( 43 ). Participants were excluded from the study based on the following criteria: IQ < 80, active substance dependence, psychosis, presence of pervasive developmental disorders (e.g., autism), and psychotropic medication use.…”