From an NPR article here.
This guy has conducted two studies (published here and here) that suggest that not spanking leads to higher IQs. There have been other studies that demonstrate the connection between spanking and lower success rates as adults.
It's often difficult to make conclusions from statistical data like this; it could simply be the case that kids are poorer and dumber because their parents are poorer and dumber, and that poor and dumb people just happen to spank their kids more often. However, he claims he was able to adjust for socio-economic factors, indicating that the relationship between spanking and the child's IQs is causal.
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I totally believe it. A kid who understand why something is wrong on his own is better able to develope as a rational and moral person than a child only motivated by fear of his father's wrath. Further, if the point the parent is trying to get across is truly correct, then the actor could probably do it by explanation, or by the child observing it herself (including parents acting by example). Thus, spanking, like violence itself, is probably only needed for raw showing of power unconnected with any moral principle. Learning to obey bad moral principles => poor IQ. This is true in my own experience. The friends I know who hit their kids and who threaten them with violence typiclly do so to enforce impromptu rules made up just then which contradict their other long-standing rules.
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