Junk Science Watch (Introducing a Recurring Early Ed Watch Feature)

Lots of press this week for a new study (no link available) purporting to show that spanking in early childhood leads to an increase in risky and deviant sexual behavior in adulthood. Researcher Murray Strauss surveyed “14,000 students in 32 nations” and found a correlation between respondents saying that they were spanked as children, and respondents saying that they had coerced someone into sex or participated in risky sexual behavior. We at Early Ed Watch are hardly pro-spanking partisans, but there are some real reasons to view this research with skepticism, as Alex Tabbarock points out here. We’re also curious about the reliability of college students’ self-reported recollections of whether or not (and how much) they were spanked as children. Longitudinal research would seem, to us, like a much better strategy for evaluating this question–although it still wouldn’t get at the causality issue Tabbarock highlights. We doubt, however, that an RCT of spanking would go over well with, or be faithfully implemented by, parents. (h/t: Megan McArdle)

Bonus Question: Is it just us, or is it problematic that so many news reports cover research developments without including links to the original research so that readers can check it our for themselves to evaluate its rigor and make sure the research says what the new stories say it does? In this internet era, when it’s easy to make your work available to millions electronically, shouldn’t posting your research to the web be a minimum requirement for getting press coverage of it? And shouldn’t major media be pushing academic journals to go along with such an effort to improve the public’s understanding?