Researchers found that smacking kids, instead of using non-physical punishments, reduces their emotionalintelligence and "executive functioning ability" which allows us to think on the spot and modify our behavior when necessary.
Continued corporalpunishment may make children comply with rules in the short term to avoid getting beaten, in the long term they'll fail to take them on board or understand the reasons why they exist.
The study authors, from American and Canadian universities, warn this could lead to lower levels of self-control and poorer behavior in the long term.
They monitored 63 kids from two private schools in West Africa, aged five and six. All the children came from the same area and had similar home backgrounds. One of the schools used corporalpunishment for offences ranging from forgetting a pencil to disrupting classes, while the other stuck to non-physical discipline for misdemeanors, such as verbal warnings and time-outs.
The youngsters were assigned a range of tasks designed to test their executive functioning skills. Results, published in journal Social Development, showed that the kids at the school that avoided corporalpunishment scored "significantly higher" in these tasks than kids who were smacked at school.

Study author Professor Victoria Talwar, from McGill University in Montreal, Canada, said: "These results are consistent with research findings that punitive discipline may not have any negative effects in the short term; but if relied upon over time it does not support children's problem-solving skills, or their abilities to inhibit inappropriate behaviour or to learn."




据英国《每日电讯报》28日报道，研究人员发现体罚孩子会降低其情商和"执行能力"， 而非肉体惩罚则不会。这就要求我们谨慎思考并在必要时调整我们的行为。

经常体罚或许会使儿童在短期内为了不至于再挨打而变得听话。但长久下去，孩子们就不会再买账了，或者他们无法理解自己存在的原因。

来自美国和加拿大几所大学的研究人员提醒说，长期体罚儿童可能会降低儿童的自控能力，而且他们的行为也会更加糟糕。

研究人员对西非两所私立学校的63名5至6岁的儿童进行了检测。这些儿童均来自同一个地方，并且有相似的家庭背景。其中一所学校在孩子犯错后对其进行体罚，错误包括忘带铅笔到扰乱课堂。而另一所学校用非体罚的方式惩罚违反纪律的学生，比如口头警告，免去休息时间等。


研究人员分配给孩子们一系列的任务以评估其"执行能力"。结果表明，在无体罚学校学习的儿童所得到的分数明显比在体罚学校的儿童高。这一结果已刊登在《社会发展》杂志上。


研究者之一、加拿大蒙特利尔麦吉尔大学的维多利•亚塔尔瓦教授说："这个结果和先前的发现也是一致的，即：在短期内体罚没有太多的负面影响，但是如果儿童长时间经受体罚，他们并不能帮助孩子提高解决问题的技巧以及抑制不良行为或者学习的能力。"

• emotional [i´məuʃənəl] a.易动感情的；情感的 (初中英语单词)
• intelligence [in´telidʒəns] n.智力；消息 (初中英语单词)
• punishment [´pʌniʃmənt] n.罚，刑罚 (初中英语单词)
• beaten [´bi:tn] beat 的过去分词 (初中英语单词)
• canadian [kə´neidiən] a.加拿大的n.加拿大人 (初中英语单词)
• discipline [´disiplin] n.纪律；训练 (初中英语单词)
• executive [ig´zekjutiv] a.行政的 n.行政官 (初中英语单词)
• journal [´dʒə:nəl] n.日记；日报；杂志 (初中英语单词)
• research [ri´sə:tʃ] n.&vi.调查；探究；研究 (初中英语单词)
• behavior [bi´heiviə] n.举止，行为 (高中英语单词)
• negative [´negətiv] a.否定的 n.否定词 (高中英语单词)
• corporal [´kɔ:pərəl] a.肉体的，身体的 (英语四级单词)
• comply [kəm´plai] vi.照做 (英语四级单词)
• consistent [kən´sistənt] a.一致的；始终如一的 (英语四级单词)
• self-control [,self´kəntrəul] n.自我克制 (英语六级单词)
• verbal [´və:bəl] a.文字上的；口头的 (英语六级单词)