Unintended Consequences of Punishment

Abstract

Because punishments are intended to control children's behavior, many people assume that the major—and perhaps the sole—consequence of punishment is teaching children to behave as they ought. Yet the use of punishment is (I will argue) counterproductive. Furthermore, the use of punishment has additional unintended consequences. I will attempt to demonstrate how children perceive punishments and what those unanticipated consequences are. These illustrations rest on the nature of reasoning itself, although they are bolstered by empirical evidence.

Although this conference is about the use of corporal punishment, most of what I have to say applies to using any type of punishment—including, of course, physical punishment.

First, punishments give pain and therefore teach children that at least under some conditions, it is all right to give pain to others.

The law of excluded middle asserts that things must be either of one class or not of that class. I believe this law is fundamental to rational thought. Even very young children come to understand it and can therefore reason that parents are either good or not good when they punish.

Let me begin with the assumption that children believe their parents are good. If good people do good things, then if they punish, it must be good to give pain. If good people do bad things, then even if giving pain is bad, it is all right to do some bad things. That is, if a parent uses punishments, then either the parent is doing something right and it is right to give pain or the parent is doing something wrong and it is all right to do something wrong.