Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140

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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jappdp

Physical punishment and Colombian children and adolescents' cognitive and T

behavioral outcomes☆
Jorge Cuartasa, , Kaitlin P. Wardb, Julie Mac, Andrew Grogan-Kaylord
⁎

a
Harvard Graduate School of Education, Harvard University, 13 Appian Way, Cambridge, MA 02138, United States of America
b
Department of Psychology and School of Social Work, University of Michigan, United States of America
c
Department of Social Work, University of Michigan-Flint, United States of America
d
School of Social Work, University of Michigan, United States of America

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Research from U.S. samples has shown consistent associations between physical punishment and adverse child
Physical punishment outcomes. Nonetheless, little is known about the effects of physical punishment in countries where its use is more
Internalizing symptoms accepted. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between physical punishment and children
Externalizing symptoms and adolescents' outcomes in Colombia using longitudinal data from a national sample (N = 5801). Matching
Prosocial behavior
techniques were used to improve balance in covariates between children and adolescents exposed and not ex-
Matching techniques
posed to physical punishment. Findings suggest that children and adolescents' exposure to physical punishment
was linked to higher internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as lower prosocial behaviors and receptive
vocabulary. These results highlight the importance of implementing legislation and interventions aimed at
eliminating physical punishment in Colombia.

Introduction
Physical punishment, defined as using physical force to cause a
child pain or discomfort as a means of correcting or punishing a child's
behavior (Gershoff, 2008, p. 9), is a common practice worldwide
(Cuartas et al., 2019; Pace, Lee, & Grogan-Kaylor, 2019). Yet, a recent
meta-analysis that examined over five decades of physical punishment
research found consistent associations between children and adoles-
cents' exposure to physical punishment and several behavior and
mental health problems (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016). In line with
social learning theory (Bandura, 1986) and attachment theory (Bowlby,
1980), these findings are thought to reflect the idea that caregiver
physical punishment models aggression and disrupts the formation of
secure attachments, leading to children and adolescents' cognitive and
behavioral problems. Similarly, the cumulative wear and tear of phy-
siological stress (i.e., allostatic load) that children and adolescents can
experience when physically punished by parents may explain the as-
sociations of physical punishment with mental health and neurocog-
nitive difficulties (Rogosch, Dackis, & Cicchetti, 2011).
While research on physical punishment in the United States is well
established, studies conducted among samples from countries other
than the United States are less common (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor,
2016). Additionally, despite the decades of research elucidating the link
between physical punishment and negative child outcomes, researchers
still debate as to whether the association between physical punishment
and detrimental child outcomes is robust to different modeling tech-
niques and to the inclusion of different individual and contextual con-
founders (Larzelere, Gunnoe, & Ferguson, 2018). This study responds to
the abovementioned gaps by examining the association between phy-
sical punishment among a sample of children and adolescents from
Colombia using matching, a group of statistical techniques that reduce
imbalances in observed characteristics to mimic the conditions that
would have been produced had random assignment taken place
(Imbens, 2015).
Links between physical punishment and child and adolescent outcomes
Multiple theoretical perspectives suggest that exposure to physical
punishment during childhood and adolescence can lead to negative
outcomes. From an attachment theory perspective (Bowlby, 1980),
exposure to physical punishment can increase children's internalizing
behavior problems. Physically punished children and adolescents are
more likely to withdraw from their parents or caregivers, as the pain
caused by physical punishment provokes a desire to escape the painful

☆
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
⁎
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: jcuartas@g.harvard.edu (J. Cuartas).

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.appdev.2020.101140
Received 7 October 2019; Received in revised form 16 April 2020
0193-3973/ © 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
J. Cuartas, et al.
stimulus (Gershoff, 2002). Similarly, physical punishment can elicit
feelings of frustration, anger, and resentment towards caregivers
(Durrant & Ensom, 2012). The fear of pain and feelings of anger can
undermine the parent-child relationship, disrupting attachment bonds,
leading to downstream consequences on children's mental health and
internalizing behavior problems (Gershoff, 2002).
Social learning theory (Bandura, 1986) also can explain the link
between physical punishment and children's externalizing behavior
problems. Children are hypothesized to observe, imitate, and eventually
internalize behaviors in processes of observational learning that depend
on the way significant others model such behaviors (Bandura, 1986).
When parents or other caregivers employ physical punishment, they
concurrently communicate to their child or adolescent that aggression
is acceptable and effective in modifying others' behavior. As a con-
sequence, children internalize the idea that aggression is normative and
tend to imitate aggressive behaviors (Gershoff, 2002). Importantly,
because social learning theory hypothesizes that parents and other
primary caregivers' modeling is particularly influential for children and
adolescents (Bandura, 1986), parental use of physical punishment is
likely to cause a long-lasting impact on children's externalizing pro-
blems.
Biophysiological models also suggest that physical punishment has
the potential to interfere with children's cognitive development and
increase the risk of internalizing and externalizing behavior problems
through neural mechanisms. The literature on stress neurobiology
shows that children's exposure to adverse or threatening situations,
such as maltreatment or sexual violence, produce a myriad of physio-
logical consequences that lead to maladaptive stress responses, which
can ultimately alter brain regions with greater sensitivity to gluco-
corticoids, such as the prefrontal cortex (PCF; Gunnar & Quevedo,
2007). Children and adolescents are likely to perceive physical pun-
ishment as a threat because it causes fear, pain, and distress (Gershoff,
2016). Therefore, exposure to physical punishment will likely inhibit
children and adolescents' higher cognitive functions, emotional reg-
ulation, and language skills, which are all thought to be related to ac-
tivity in the PFC (Miller & Cohen, 2001).
The study of physical punishment may also intersect with children's
developmental stages. Physical punishment is used most frequently
during early childhood, followed by middle childhood and adolescence
(MacKenzie et al., 2015; Wang & Kenny, 2014). While the rates of
parental use of physical punishment vary by developmental stages, its
effect on children's outcomes appear to be consistent. Indeed, results of
the meta-analysis by Gershoff and Grogan-Kaylor (2016) indicate a lack
of moderation by children's age ranges (i.e., infancy, preschool age,
elementary school years, and early- to mid-adolescence) in the link
between physical punishment and negative child outcomes.
Evidence from outside the U.S. and methodological issues
Globally, approximately 6 out of 10 children and adolescents are
exposed to physical punishment (Cuartas et al., 2019; UNICEF, 2014).
Studies using international samples (e.g., Gershoff et al., 2010; Lansford
et al., 2005; Lansford, Deater-Deckard, Bornstein, Putnick, & Bradley,
2014; Pace et al., 2019) reveal that physical punishment is consistently
linked to deleterious child cognitive and behavioral outcomes across
countries, even though the magnitude of the effects may vary somewhat
with the normativeness and acceptability around disciplinary practices
across cultural contexts. One cross-cultural study (i.e., Alampay et al.,
2017) that included 988 children aged 7–10 years from China, Co-
lombia, Italy, Jordan, Kenya, Philippines, Thailand, and the United
States found that neither parental-reported severity nor justness of their
use of physical punishment moderated the association between physical
punishment and children's externalizing problems. Despite these stu-
dies, most of the research has been conducted with North American
samples (Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor, 2016), and studies in Latin
America are particularly scarce.
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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140
Furthermore, the question has often been raised as to whether the
observed associations in the abovementioned studies are robust to
different modeling techniques, or whether omitted confounders in
linear models drive the observed associations (Larzelere et al., 2018).
Specifically, it may be that the association between physical punish-
ment and undesirable child and adolescent outcomes can be attributed
to alternative factors (e.g., contextual violence) that jointly explain
both parental physical punishment and adverse child and adolescent
outcomes. Recent statistical work and much theoretical conversation
have concentrated on whether these confounding variables can be ruled
out (e.g., Grogan-Kaylor, 2005; Ma, Grogan-Kaylor, & Lee, 2018). Most
of the work in this vein has made use of fixed effects regression
methods, which rely on repeated measures data (Grogan-Kaylor, 2005;
Ma et al., 2018). However, fixed-effects methods only control for un-
observed time-invariant heterogeneity, which does not correct for
characteristics that may change across time. Randomized experiments
can address this limitation; however, this type of research design is
unethical in physical punishment studies. More recently, Gershoff,
Sattler, and Ansari (2018) proposed the use of propensity score
matching to produce an adequate comparison group. While matching
procedures rely on strong assumptions to identify causal effects,
matching approximates randomized experiments in producing balance
in observed characteristics. Using propensity score matching, two stu-
dies (Gershoff et al., 2018; Gershoff, Sattler, & Holden, 2019) found
that physical punishment was linked to externalizing problems, de-
pressive symptoms, and lower academic achievement among samples of
children in the U.S.; yet, the replicability of this finding in international
contexts—particularly in settings where physical punishment is more
prevalent—is less clear.
The Colombian context
Colombia is a compelling setting in which to study the association of
physical punishment with child and adolescent outcomes. Recent stu-
dies reveal that a higher proportion of Colombian children are exposed
to physical punishment in comparison to other countries with similar
socioeconomic and demographic characteristics (Cuartas et al., 2019).
The high prevalence of physical punishment in Colombia might be
explained by several factors. For example, Colombia has not fully
prohibited physical punishment at home, nor has it committed to do so
(Global Initiative to End Corporal Punishment of Children, 2019). Ad-
ditionally, Colombia has relatively high levels of poverty and urban
violence, and was affected by a civil war that lasted more than
50 years—all factors that have been identified as predictors of the use of
physical punishment (Cuartas, Grogan-Kaylor, et al., 2019). Notably,
the presence of armed groups such as the Revolutionary Armed Forces
of Colombia (FARC in Spanish) has exposed Colombian children and
adolescents to multiple contextual stressors, including cultural accep-
tance of violence in their communities (Human Rights Watch, 2003).
Furthermore, little is known about the topic of physical punishment in
Colombia. Despite the growing body of studies examining the pre-
valence and predictors of physical punishment in Colombia (e.g.,
Cuartas, Grogan-Kaylor, et al., 2019; González, Trujillo, & Pereda,
2014), no study to date has analyzed the potential effects of physical
punishment on Colombian children and adolescents' development and
wellbeing.
The current study
The present study analyzes the associations between physical pun-
ishment and cognitive and behavioral outcomes of children and ado-
lescents in Colombia, a country where physical punishment is legal and
a socially accepted practice. In this historical moment, when peace
agreements have put an end to the civil conflict and several efforts are
being conducted to protect children and adolescents from all forms of
violence (De Cero a Siempre, 2013), this study aims to make visible the
J. Cuartas, et al. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140

potential consequences that physical punishment may have on chil- Table 1

dren’s and adolescents' wellbeing. In particular, we pose the following Sample characteristics (N = 5,801).
research questions: M SD Min Max

1. What is the association between physical punishment and children Child PPVT score 82.77 19.98 4 125
SDQ
and adolescents' cognitive and behavioral outcomes, using matching
Total difficulties 8.80 5.53 0 33
techniques to improve balance in a set of individual, family, Prosocial behaviors 8.70 1.61 0 10
household, and community-level observed characteristics? Internalizing symptoms 3.12 2.72 0 18
2. Do different types of matching techniques provide robust results Externalizing symptoms 5.71 3.79 0 19
concerning the association of physical punishment and children and Age (in years) 10.74 2.83 5 16
Sex (male) 0.50 0.50 0 1
adolescents' cognitive and behavioral outcomes?
Studied preschool 0.86 0.35 0 1
Discipline Physical punishment 0.49 0.49 0 1
Method Ignore 0.55 0.50 0 1
Yell 0.73 0.45 0 1
Explain 0.98 0.14 0 1
Sample
Parent Lives with father 0.59 0.49 0 1
Lives with mother 0.88 0.33 0 1
We use data from the Colombian Longitudinal Survey (ELCA, for its Parental education
acronym in Spanish). The ELCA is a household longitudinal survey Basic or less 0.57 0.49 0 1
aimed at understanding the evolution of living conditions in Colombian Secondary 0.35 0.48 0 1
Superior 0.07 0.26 0 1
households, changes in the labor market, social and political behavior,
Household Wealth index 0.01 1.01 −3.86 4.87
and children and adolescents' developmental trajectories, among others Overcrowding 0.41 0.49 0 1
(Castaño, 2018). The ELCA's sample is comprised of 6000 urban Beneficiary of ICBF 0.32 0.47 0 1
households and is representative at the national level for socio-eco- Adversities – shocks
nomic strati one to four (Colombia uses a system of strata that goes Death of a member 0.10 0.29 0 1
Violence 0.05 0.22 0 1
from one, referring to low-class settings, to six, for high-class settings, to Separation 0.14 0.35 0 1
determine utility fees and to establish cross-class subsidies). In rural Unemployment 0.34 0.47 0 1
areas, the ELCA's sample includes 4800 households, and is re- Assets loss 0.25 0.43 0 1
presentative for small farm producers for four micro-regions, namely Cultural background White 0.20 0.40 0 1
Afro-descendent 0.05 0.22 0 1
the Mid-Atlantic, the Coffee Region, Cundiboyacense, and Center-East
Indigenous 0.12 0.33 0 1
Region (Castaño, 2018). A probabilistic, stratified sampling technique Other 0.63 0.48 0 1
was used to determine the sample size, beginning by choosing muni- Geography Region
cipalities (i.e., smallest administrative unit in Colombia) within each Atlántica 0.14 0.35 0 1
region in urban and rural areas. Subsequently, blocks (in urban areas) Oriental 0.10 0.30 0 1
Central 0.07 0.26 0 1
and villages (in rural areas) within each municipality were choose, and Pacífica 0.08 0.27 0 1
researchers randomly selected households within these blocks and vil- Bogotá 0.06 0.24 0 1
lages to be interviewed (Castaño, 2018). The ELCA's information was Atlántica Media 0.17 0.38 0 1
collected in home visits, through a household questionnaire and a direct Cundi-Boyacense 0.15 0.35 0 1
Eje Cafetero 0.09 0.29 0 1
assessment of children's vocabulary.
Centro-Oriente 0.14 0.34 0 1
The baseline ELCA was conducted in 2010, and has had two follow- Zone (Urban) 0.45 0.50 0 1
ups, one in 2013 and another in 2016. Children and adolescents' in-
formation was reported by one of their main caregivers: 89.2 percent
were a parent, 8.9 percent were a grandparent, and the remaining were sample were physically punished. Importantly, this measure did not
caregivers who were neither parents nor grandparents. Our analysis specify the time period during which the caregiver employed physical
sample included 5801 individuals (2637 living in urban areas and 3164 punishment with their child. For example, it is possible that a parent
in rural areas) out of 6273 children and adolescents included in the answering the question about their child in adolescence may have re-
ELCA 2016 with complete information on all study variables (i.e., 8 sponded “yes” reflecting an incident of physical punishment that oc-
percent of missing cases). Children and adolescents included in this curred when the adolescent was younger in early or middle childhood.
study were similar to those excluded in several socioeconomic and
demographic variables, but we observed statistically significant differ-
ences between the groups in children and adolescents' age, sex, and Internalizing, externalizing, and prosocial behavior
other household (e.g., wealth) and regional characteristics (e.g., urba- Child behavioral strengths and difficulties in 2016 were assessed by
nicity). Consequently, listwise deletion was used for complete case the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), which consists of 25
analysis. On average, in 2016, sampled individuals were 10.7 years old items that assess child mental health challenges (Goodman, 1997). The
(range = 5–16), half of them were girls, and 20 percent lived in SDQ comprises five subscales of five items each that assess behavioral
households self-reported as White, 5 percent as Afro-Colombian, 12 problems, emotional problems, peer problems, hyperactivity, and pro-
percent as Indigenous, and 63 as other (see Table 1 for details). social behavior. The emotional and peer problems subscales can be
combined to create an “internalizing behavior” subscale. Example items
Measures for the internalizing behavior subscale include “often unhappy, de-
pressed or tearful” and “rather solitary, prefers to play alone.” More-
Physical punishment over, the behavioral problems and hyperactivity subscales can be
Children and adolescents' exposure to physical punishment in 2016 combined to create an “externalizing behavior” subscale. Example
was measured by asking the following question to the child or ado- items for the externalizing behavior subscale include “often loses
lescent's caregiver in both rounds of data collection: “When the child or temper” and “restless, overactive, cannot stay still for long.” These
adolescent does not obey, usually do you shake, pinch, or hit him or her broader internalizing and externalizing subscales can be more useful in
with your hand or with an object?” (0 = no, 1 = yes). As shown in epidemiological studies, such as the present study, whereas the five
Table 1, on average, 49 percent of children and adolescents in this subscales may be more useful when attempting to determine whether a

3
J. Cuartas, et al.
clinical disorder exists (Goodman, Lamping, & Ploubidis, 2010). Ad-
ditionally, each subscale—except for prosocial behavior—can be com-
bined to create a “total difficulties” score. Finally, the prosocial beha-
vior subscale includes, among others, the following items: “considerate
of other people's feelings” and “shared readily with other children, for
example toys, treats, pencils.”
In this study, we used the SDQ to measure four aspects of children
and adolescents' behavior: a) internalizing behavior, b) externalizing
behavior, c) prosocial behavior, and d) total behavioral difficulties. The
SDQ has been used and validated in socioeconomically diverse coun-
tries around the world (Achenbach et al., 2008). In our sample, the
internal consistency was adequate for internalizing behavior (⍺ = .61),
externalizing behavior (⍺ = .74), prosocial behavior (⍺ = .62), and
total behavioral difficulties (⍺ = .79).
Child receptive vocabulary
Child receptive vocabulary, defined as the ability to receive and
understand written and spoken language, was assessed in 2016 using
the standardized Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test (PPVT). Receptive
language is related to a host of academic and learning outcomes and
also serves as a good representation of acquired knowledge that is ty-
pically gained through reading, learning opportunities, and life ex-
perience (Sullivan, 2016). Although the full PPVT has 228 items, the
total number of items differ for each participant based on age and
difficulty level. For each item, the administrator reads one word aloud
and asks the participant to point to one of four pictures that best cor-
responds to the spoken word. A major advantage of the PPVT is that it
can assess receptive vocabulary for a wide range of ages and strongly
correlates with several intelligence tests (Bernal, Martínez, & Quintero,
2015). The PPVT has been validated among Spanish-speaking samples
in the U.S. (Slavin, Madden, Calderon, Chamberlain, & Hennessy, 2011;
Wood, Hoge, Schatschneider, & Castilla-Earls, 2018), in Colombia using
samples of 6- to- 17-year olds (Beltrán et al., 2017), and has been
widely used in previous studies in Colombia (see Bernal et al., 2015).
Individual, family, and contextual characteristics
Caregiver-reported sociodemographic characteristics that could in-
fluence physical punishment and child cognitive and behavioral out-
comes were included in all analyses. Child age was measured in years.
Child sex was dichotomously coded (0 = female, 1 = male). Three
measures of parental discipline, reported by parents in 2016, were di-
chotomously coded, assessing whether parents usually ignored, yelled,
or explained to the child when disciplining their child (0 = no,
1 = yes). Whether the child attended preschool and whether the child
lived with their father or mother were dichotomously coded (0 = no,
1 = yes). The highest level of parent education—including basic edu-
cation or less, secondary education, and post-secondary education
(“superior”)—was dichotomously coded (0 = no, 1 = yes).
Household wealth in 2010 was measured in the ELCA employing an
index that followed the work of Filmer and Pritchett (2001). The
household wealth measure used an algorithm based on principal com-
ponent analysis to aggregate in a single, continuous measure a set of
characteristics that reflected levels of multidimensional poverty. This
index included variables such as access to public services, housing
characteristics, and possession of durable goods. Whether the child
experienced overcrowding in their household and whether the child
was a beneficiary of the Instituto Colombiano de Bienestar Familiar in
2010 (ICBF)—a welfare program that provides food to children from
low-income families—were dichotomously coded (0 = no, 1 = yes).
Adverse life experiences of the child between 2010 and 2016 (as re-
ported by parents in 2013 and 2016) were also dichotomously coded
(0 = no, 1 = yes): death of a family member, exposure to a violent
event, separation from family, parental unemployment, and loss of as-
sets. Child's cultural background was dichotomously coded (0 = no,
1 = yes) in four categories: White, Afro-descent, Indigenous, and other.
The region in which the child lived was coded as a set of indicator
4
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140
variables, each dichotomously coded (0 = no, 1 = yes) and had nine
categories: Atlántica, Oriental, Central, Pacífica, Bogotá, Atlántica
Media, Cundi-Boyacense, Eje Cafetero, and Centro-Oriente. Finally,
whether the child lived in an urban or rural area was dichotomously
coded (0 = rural, 1 = urban). A descriptive summary of these socio-
demographic characteristics can be found in Table 1.
Analysis
We employed matching techniques to assess the association be-
tween physical punishment and children and adolescents' cognitive and
behavioral outcomes. Matching estimate associations under non-ex-
perimental conditions, which mimics the characteristics that would
have been produced had random assignment taken place (Imbens,
2015). For every observation in the “treatment” group (in our case, the
group of children and adolescents who were physically punished),
matching techniques construct an artificial comparison group that have
the most similar (i.e., statistically indistinguishable) observed char-
acteristics. Consequently, if successful, matching methods produce
balance in observed characteristics between treatment groups and thus
allow researchers to estimate unbiased associations under the as-
sumption of conditional independence (i.e., the selection is based on
observed characteristics, which are used to match the treatment groups;
Caliendo & Kopeinig, 2005; Imbens, 2015).
One common approach to solve the problem of dimensionality (i.e.,
to find the most similar observations based on several characteristics)
has been to use propensity score matching (PSM; Rosenbaum & Rubin,
1983), which aims to find the observations with the same probability to
be treated (in our case to be physically punished) based on observed
characteristics. PSM involves the following five steps (Caliendo &
Kopeinig, 2005). First, it is necessary to estimate the propensity score
(i.e., the probability of being physically punished) based on observed
characteristics. To do so, variables causing endogeneity bias (i.e., those
correlated both with the treatment and the outcome variable) should be
used to estimate the propensity score. For our estimation, we included
children and adolescents' age, sex, ethnicity, whether the child attended
preschool, parental education, household wealth, presence of mother
and father at home, an indicator for beneficiaries of the ICBF, house-
hold exposure to violence, economic shocks, death of a family member,
region fixed effects (i.e., binary variables for each region with one
omitted category; importantly, this variable may capture differences in
normativeness and acceptability of physical punishment across cultural
settings within the country), and children and adolescents' exposure to
other disciplinary methods (i.e., explain, ignore, yell).
Second, it is necessary to examine the condition of common support,
to analyze whether there is enough overlap between the propensity
score of physically punished groups. The lack of overlap may suggest
that both groups are systematically different, and that matching may
not be able to produce an adequate counterfactual. Fig. 1 presents the
common support once the propensity scores were estimated in our
analytic sample. As shown by the distributions, there is enough overlap
between both groups, and only a small fraction of observations seems to
lie outside the common support, suggesting that matching techniques
are feasible.
Third, a matching algorithm must be selected. In general, there is a
trade-off between bias and efficiency when selecting an algorithm, so
employing different algorithms is warranted to test the robustness of
the estimates (Caliendo & Kopeinig, 2005). We employed four different
algorithms, namely four nearest neighbors (4-NN; following Gershoff
et al., 2018), ten nearest neighbors (10-NN), Radius, and Kernel
matching. Briefly, NN algorithms find n observations in the control
group with the most similar propensity scores to each observation in the
treatment group. Despite finding the observations with the most similar
propensity score, it may be that these scores are considerably different.
Radius matching solves this problem by imposing a tolerance level for
the maximum propensity score distance for the observations that will
J. Cuartas, et al.
Fig. 1. The common support condition (N = 5,801).
be used for the comparison (i.e., caliper). Finally, Kernel matching as-
signs weights to each control observation based on its distance to each
treatment, assigning higher weights for observations that who are more
alike, and leads to weighted comparison between both groups. All these
algorithms are conducted with the observations that fall within the
common support.
Once the matching has been completed, its quality must be assessed.
The most common strategy to do so is to perform mean difference tests
between matched treatment groups, examining whether balance in
observed characteristics (even those not included to estimate the pro-
pensity score) was achieved. After achieving balance in observed
characteristics, the matched sample of children and adolescents ex-
posed and not exposed to physical punishment were compared to assess
differences in the outcome variables, holding the other characteristics
included in the model constant.
Finally, as matching methods tend to understate standard errors
(finding statistically significant effects when they are not present), it is
necessary to estimate the standard errors using bootstrapping, re-esti-
mating the effect N times to obtain a distribution that approximate the
standard error of the population mean (Caliendo & Kopeinig, 2005). We
employed bootstrapping with 100 repetitions for all of our models. As
an additional robustness check, we performed Entropy matching
(Hainmueller, 2012), which is not based on propensity scores, but on a
re-weighting scheme to achieve covariate balance between treatment
groups. Prior to estimation, all outcome variables were standardized to
have a mean of zero and a standard deviation of one. All analyses were
conducted in Stata 15.1 and one graph was processed in RStudio 3.5.1.
Results
Fig. 2 presents the distribution of the outcome variables for children
and adolescents exposed and not exposed to physical punishment. The
descriptive findings in Table 2 show that the unmatched group of
physically punished children and adolescents scored lower on the PPVT
and the SRQ prosocial scale, whereas they scored higher on the inter-
nalizing, externalizing, and total difficulties' scales in comparison to
children and adolescents who were not physically punished. Although
suggestive, these differences in the distributions may be caused by a
third endogenous variable (i.e., omitted-variable bias), so other statis-
tical methods are needed to reduce the risk of confounding. As shown in
Table 2, there are several statistically significant differences between
the physical punishment groups before we matched the samples (see
column Unmatched). After using the four different matching algorithms
described earlier, we are able to achieve statistical balance in all cov-
ariates (see columns 2-NN to Entropy).
Table 3 and Fig. 3 summarize results from regression models for the
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Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140
matched samples. Fig. 3 presents the observed coefficient (x-axis) for
each matching method (y-axis) for each outcome variable, along with
95 percent confidence intervals from bootstrapping in PSM and robust
standard errors for Entropy. The results suggest that physical punish-
ment is linked at statistically significant levels (i.e., 95% confidence
intervals do not include zero) to an array of detrimental child outcomes,
regardless of the matching technique used. First, on average, children
and adolescents exposed to physical punishment scored between 0.39
(Entropy, 95% CI -0.45, −0.33) to 0.41 SD (4-NN, 95% CI -0.48,
−0.33) below their counterparts who were not physically punished in
the PPVT, and around 0.18 SD (95% CI -0.25, −0.11 in 4-NN) less in
the prosocial scale in comparison to children and adolescents not ex-
posed to physical punishment. Moreover, physically punished children
and adolescents exhibit around 0.10 SD higher levels of internalizing
problems and around 0.24 SD higher levels of externalizing problems
than their counterparts not exposed to physical punishment, which is
reflected in their higher total difficulties score in the SDQ (around 0.22
SD, 95% CI 0.15, 0.27 for 4-NN).
Discussion
This study examined the association between physical punishment
and Colombian children and adolescents' behavioral and cognitive
outcomes using matching techniques, in order to respond to calls for
attention to international samples while reducing concerns related to
imbalance in observed characteristics between children and adolescents
exposed and not exposed to physical punishment. We found that,
compared to children and adolescents who were not physically pun-
ished, children and adolescents who were physically punished ex-
hibited higher levels of externalizing behaviors, internalizing beha-
viors, and total behavioral difficulties, while also exhibiting lower
prosocial behavior and receptive vocabulary abilities.
Our findings are consistent with Gershoff et al.'s (2018) study,
which used PSM within a U.S. sample. In addition to analyzing an in-
ternational and understudied sample, the current study expands upon
prior work in key ways. First, our study attempts to follow the best-
practice guidelines related to matching (e.g., Caliendo & Kopeinig,
2005). Specifically, we restricted our analyses to the common support
(i.e., region where the propensity scores of physically punished groups
overlapped); used bootstrapping to estimate accurate standard errors;
and clearly specified how we achieved balance for each of our matching
techniques. This level of reporting enables other researchers to replicate
our analytic techniques. Second, for sensitivity and robustness checks as
suggested in previous work in developmental science (e.g., Duncan,
Engel, Claessens, & Dowsett, 2014), we employ different matching
techniques that constitute within-study replications. Employing these
robustness checks is particularly relevant when using matching tech-
niques, as PSM is highly sensitive to model specification (King &
Nielsen, 2016). However, it is important to note that unlike Gershoff
et al.'s (2018) study that utilized longitudinal data and controlled for
children's previous behavior, our analyses were not able to control for
children's prior levels of behavioral and cognitive outcomes. Future
studies should continue employing robustness checks or within-study
replications on longitudinal data to provide further evidence on the
validity of their findings.
Our findings are also consistent with studies using U.S.-based sam-
ples that have found associations of physical punishment with detri-
mental child socio-emotional outcomes (see Gershoff & Grogan-Kaylor,
2016). There are a number of possible mechanisms explaining our re-
sults. It is possible that caregiver modeling of physical punishment in-
creased the likelihood of children and adolescents resorting to physical
violence and aggression as coping mechanisms (Bandura, 1986) and
disrupted children and adolescents' attachment patterns, resulting in
increased internalizing and externalizing behavior and decreased pro-
social behavior (Bowlby, 1980). It is also possible that physical pun-
ishment contributed to an accumulation of physiological stress, with
J. Cuartas, et al.
Fig. 2. Density of the outcome variables for the physical punishment groups (N = 5,801).
downstream consequences on children and adolescents' cognitive abil-
ities (Rogosch et al., 2011). These causal mechanisms will need to be
explicitly examined in future research.
Our findings should be interpreted with Colombia's unique context
in mind. Due to the aftermath of 50 years of civil conflict, Colombian
children and adolescents are exposed to higher rates of community and
family violence than children and adolescents in other Latin American
and low- and- middle-income countries (Save the Children, 2017). Prior
research using samples from Chilean adolescents has found the asso-
ciations of parental physical punishment with a range of adverse be-
havioral outcomes (e.g., Ma, Grogan-Kaylor, & Delva, 2016; Ma, Han,
Grogan-Kaylor, Delva, & Castillo, 2012). Our results extend the limited
literature on parenting in Latin American contexts by suggesting that
parental physical punishment places children and adolescents' beha-
vioral and cognitive development at risk, even in contexts in which the
use of violent means to discipline children and adolescents is culturally
accepted and children and adolescents' exposure to family and com-
munity violence is prevalent.
Limitations and future directions
There are some limitations to this research. Matching techniques are
only able to account for measured variables that were used to match the
samples; consequently, it is possible that there were unobserved dif-
ferences correlated with the use of physical punishment and children
and adolescents' outcomes that are not captured by our models. To fully
address selection bias, future research should employ methods that
control both observed and unobserved heterogeneity. Moreover, our
analyses did not account for bidirectional family processes. For ex-
ample, it is possible that physical punishment is associated with higher
levels of behavior problems which, in turn, are associated with
6
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140
increased use of physical punishment. Additionally, while child out-
comes were measured in 2016, these same outcomes were not mea-
sured in any previous years of the study. Future studies would benefit
from controlling for prior levels of outcome measures to step even
closer to addressing the issue of selection. Further, if longitudinal
measures of child behavior are available and researchers use matching,
the researcher would be able to match children who have similar levels
of initial behavior problems and determine whether physical punish-
ment exerts deleterious effects above and beyond these baseline levels,
as was done in Gershoff et al. (2018).
Furthermore, caregivers were asked to report the use of multiple
methods of physical punishment (i.e., shake, pinch, or hit with a hand
or object). Due to the nature of this question, it is difficult to explicate
whether one of these physical punishment methods are driving our
results. Also, data on the frequency or severity of children and ado-
lescents' exposure to physical punishment are not available. It is also
possible that caregivers under- or over-reported their actual use of
physical punishment. Along a similar vein, we do not have information
on when the parent employed physical punishment; that is, we cannot
discern the timing or frequency of physical punishment that children in
ELCA were exposed to. Although a recent meta-analysis suggests the
effects of spanking are not moderated by the age of the child (Gershoff
& Grogan-Kaylor, 2016), future research should explore whether the
associations between physical punishment and children's negative
outcomes are consistent across developmental stages.
Additionally, the reliability of two of our main dependent variables
(i.e., internalizing behavior and prosocial behavior) was lower than
desired. Yet, measurement error due to low internal consistency relia-
bility may attenuate the estimated coefficients, reducing the ability of
our analysis to detect associations of physical punishment and children
and adolescents' cognitive or behavioral outcomes. Finally, some
J. Cuartas, et al. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140

Table 2
Difference in observable characteristics between physical punishment groups and difference using different matching methods N = 5,801.
Difference between physical punishment groups (physical punishment – no physical punishment)

Unmatched 2-NN 4-NN Radius Kernel Entropy

Child Age (in years) 1.49⁎⁎

−0.02 −0.03 −0.04 −0.08 −0.08
Sex (male) −0.06⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Studied preschool −0.05⁎⁎ −0.01 −0.01 −0.01 0.00 0.00
Discipline Ignore −0.11⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Yell −0.25⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 −0.01 0.00 0.00
Explain −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Parent Lives with father 0.03⁎⁎ −0.02 −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Lives with mother −0.05⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Parental education
Basic or less 0.05⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 −0.01 −0.01 −0.01
Secondary −0.06⁎⁎ 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Superior 0.02⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Household Wealth index 0.11⁎⁎ 0.04 0.02 0.01 −0.01 −0.01
Overcrowding −0.06⁎⁎ 0.02 0.02 0.02 0.01 0.01
Beneficiary of ICBF −0.09⁎⁎ −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Adversities – shocks
Death of a member 0.02⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Violence −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Separation −0.09 0.01 0.00 −0.01 −0.01 −0.01
Unemployment −0.05⁎ 0.01 0.02 0.01 0.01 0.01
Assets lost −0.02 0.00 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.01
Cultural background White 0.04⁎ −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Afro-descendent −0.01+ −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Indigenous 0.01 0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Other −0.03⁎ 0.01 −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Geography Region
Atlántica −0.01⁎⁎ −0.01 −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Oriental −0.01 −0.01 −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Central −0.01+ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Pacífica −0.01 0.00 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00
Bogotá 0.01+ 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Atlántica Media −0.01 0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Cundi-Boyacense 0.04⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Eje Cafetero 0.03⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Centro-Oriente 0.03⁎⁎ 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00
Zone (Urban) −0.08⁎⁎ −0.01 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00

Note. Results reported: differences for a t-test. NN=Nearest Neighbor.

⁎⁎
p < .01.
⁎
p < .05.
+
p < .10.

characteristics of children and adolescents excluded from the study due
to missing data were systematically different from children and ado-
lescents included in the study, which limits the generalizability of our
findings.
Our findings suggest that matching could be fruitfully used to re-
duce imbalance in observed characteristics when studying the con-
nections between parental physical punishment and children and ado-
lescents' outcomes. Additionally, our results suggest that physical
punishment may not only be associated with increased negative beha-
viors, but also with decreased positive outcomes (i.e., prosocial beha-
vior, cognitive ability). Future research should include measures of
positive behaviors, particularly using direct assessment (as the PPVT) to
determine whether this finding is present among other samples. Given
the importance of understanding what forms of discipline might pro-
mote positive social development among children and adolescents
(Gershoff et al., 2010; Lansford et al., 2005, 2014), the use of matching
methods to study positive discipline in cross-cultural contexts seems
warranted.
Implications
The present findings suggest that interventions to reduce the use of

Table 3
Results using different matching techniques.
2-NN 4-NN Radius Kernel Entropy

β 95% CI β 95% CI β 95% CI β 95% CI β 95% CI

PPVT −0.40 [−0.46, −0.33] −0.41 [−0.48, −0.33] −0.40 [−0.46, −0.34] −0.40 [−0.45, −0.35] −0.39 [−0.45, −0.33]
SDQ Total difficulties 0.22 [0.14, 0.30] 0.21 [0.15, 0.27] 0.21 [0.14, 0.28] 0.22 [0.17, 0.28] 0.21 [0.15, 0.28]
Prosocial −0.17 [−0.24, −0.11] −0.18 [−0.25, −0.11] −0.18 [−0.23, −0.13] −0.18 [−0.24, −0.12] −0.18 [−0.24, −0.11]
Internalizing 0.10 [0.04, 0.17] 0.09 [0.03, 0.16] 0.10 [0.04, 0.15] 0.10 [0.04, 0.16] 0.10 [0.04, 0.16]
Externalizing 0.24 [0.16, 0.32] 0.24 [0.16, 0.31] 0.23 [0.16, 0.31] 0.25 [0.19, 0.31] 0.23 [0.17, 0.30]
N in common support 5790 5790 5790 5788 5801

Note. Bootstrapped standard errors (100 replications) for propensity score matching techniques. Robust standard errors for Entropy matching. Caliper of 0.01 for
radius matching.

7
J. Cuartas, et al.
Fig. 3. Results using different matching techniques and 95% confidence intervals.
Note. Bootstrapped standard errors (100 replications) for propensity score matching techniques. Robust standard errors for Entropy matching. Caliper of 0.01 for
radius matching.
Note. Sample sizes for each analytic approach: 2-NN: 5790; 4-NN: 5790; Radius: 5790; Kernel: 5788; Entropy: 5801.
physical punishment may be needed. Indeed, UNICEF (2014) and the
American Academy of Pediatrics (Sege et al., 2018) have called for the
abolition of all physical punishment. Consequently, the use of evidence-
based interventions that aim to prevent and reduce physical punish-
ment as well as community-based programs and public education to
change attitudes and behavior around physical punishment are war-
ranted (Gershoff, Lee, & Durrant, 2017). Equally important, those
working with families and children need to be able to suggest the use of
positive discipline strategies. An important component of positive dis-
cipline is that parents demonstrate emotional warmth and support
(Rohner, 2004; Rohner, Khaleque, Cournoyer, & D., 2008). A particu-
larly good guide to positive parenting strategies, with examples re-
levant to diverse populations around the world, is provided by Durrant's
(2016) book on Positive Discipline in Everyday Parenting. A translation of
this book has been published in Spanish (Disciplina Positiva En La
Crianza Cotidiana) and thus is suitable for use in Colombia.
There are also potential implications for policy. Our results align
with the global conversation on physical punishment (https://
endcorporalpunishment.org/), suggesting that, in general, physical
punishment may be harmful for children and adolescents in Colombia.
More research should be conducted to determine whether it would be
beneficial for Colombia to follow the 59 countries that have enacted
country-level bans on physical punishment (https://
endcorporalpunishment.org/). Recent findings suggest that such a
policy could be associated with positive outcomes, including a reduc-
tion in youth violence (Elgar et al., 2018). In addition to large-scale
universal changes that reduce and ultimately prohibit physical pun-
ishment, policies could be enacted for all parents to receive positive,
non-violent parenting resources. However, more research is needed to
determine which individual- or population-level changes would be
helpful for children and families in Colombia.
8
Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology 68 (2020) 101140
Conclusion
The results from this study provide methodologically rigorous evi-
dence that physical punishment is associated with undesirable out-
comes for children and adolescents in Colombia. Specifically, compared
to children and adolescents who were not physically punished, children
and adolescents who were physically punished exhibited more ex-
ternalizing behavior, more internalizing behavior, more total beha-
vioral difficulties, less prosocial behavior, and less receptive vocabulary
ability. These results, along findings from previous studies, suggest that
child advocates, social service agencies, and policy makers would do
well to seek to abolish the physical punishment of children and ado-
lescents in Colombia.
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