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sapinker's profile
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Steven Pinker
Verified account
@sapinker

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Steven PinkerVerified account

@sapinker

Cognitive scientist at Harvard.

Boston, MA
pinker.wjh.harvard.edu
Joined January 2010

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    Steven Pinker‏Verified account @sapinker 18 Dec 2017

    Spanking is in decline (though the US is an outlier). Part of the decline of violence, but also ineffective, as confirmed by a large & well controlled new study - Susan Pinker explains. https://www.wsj.com/articles/spanking-for-misbehavior-it-causes-more-1513267680 … via @WSJ

    12:38 PM - 18 Dec 2017
    • 301 Retweets
    • 624 Likes
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    91 replies 301 retweets 624 likes
      1. Morph‏ @DMorph 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        “I was spanked as a kid and I grew up fine” Clearly not because you think it’s ok to hit kids.

        0 replies 2 retweets 7 likes
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      1. New conversation
      2. Melissa Frey‏ @MelissaFrey10 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @JonahNRO @WSJ

        Bigger problem is parents lack of emotional health. ANY discipline out of anger/frustration will cause negative result - physical or not.

        1 reply 0 retweets 5 likes
      3. Melissa Frey‏ @MelissaFrey10 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @MelissaFrey10 @sapinker and

        These studies never seem to look at the parent and how their approach affects outcome, even though that is such a huge key!

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      4. End of conversation
      1. Christopher‏ @Christo36378468 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        "Most children under 7 can neither master their emotions nor reason like adults". Ever been to a faculty meeting?

        0 replies 0 retweets 10 likes
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      1. New conversation
      2. gwern‏ @gwern 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        No genetic controls != well controlled. 38 poorly measured variables are not enough controls to claim causality. Consider this FB social media experiment which requires *3700* controls for propensity scoring to recover the true causal estimate: https://arxiv.org/abs/1706.04692 

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
      3. RG‏ @RGBrewski 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @gwern @sapinker @WSJ

        This is a study of peer effect? ... Not sure why your reference calls into account controls?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      4. gwern‏ @gwern 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @RGBrewski @sapinker @WSJ

        Read the paper, or at least the abstract. It's pretty obvious why it's such a nice example of why 38 variables isn't remotely enough to ensure accurate causal estimates from correlations for even simple behavior.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      5. RG‏ @RGBrewski 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @gwern @sapinker @WSJ

        I'm not familiar with behavioral studies, which I'm sure are complex... But do you mean that because there are 3700 different prior behaviors accounted for in this study there need to be more for Pinker's reference?

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      6. gwern‏ @gwern 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @RGBrewski @sapinker @WSJ

        I'm saying that observed variables are poor controls to point where even highly privacy-invasive well-measured variables require exorbitant data for causal inference. If they really believed it, they'd use a family design which controls perfectly those variables by construction.

        0 replies 0 retweets 2 likes
      7. End of conversation
      1. Phil J. Harrison, Author‏ @pjh139 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        Spanking worked wonders for me. I didn't get caught the next time.

        0 replies 0 retweets 5 likes
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      2. Patricia Nigro‏ @nigropatricia 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        It was effective for my mother who raised 5 kids alone and we are all good and respectful people. She was not violent. She knew where to draw a line. Even though I never did something like that with my own kids. Guilt is a better weapon.

        2 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
      3. My Little Great Old Ones‏ @2Cthulhu4School 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @nigropatricia @sapinker @WSJ

        All spanking taught me was that my parents would rather hit me than explain what I was doing was wrong.

        0 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      4. End of conversation
      1. New conversation
      2. Graeme Edgeler‏ @GraemeEdgeler 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        This is one area of research which should be better explained in news articles: I never see one which tells me what the control group was in the research!

        1 reply 0 retweets 10 likes
      3. 1 more reply
      1. Zackfig no Kimyō na Bōken‏ @Zackfig 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @Metropolis40 @WSJ

        Latina moms meanwhile:pic.twitter.com/DDk7vYogzR

        0 replies 0 retweets 4 likes
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      1. Barry Lyons‏ @lyonsnyc 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @WSJ

        Barry Lyons Retweeted History Lovers Club

        So I take it then that we can disregard this advice from the 1950s?https://twitter.com/historylvrsclub/status/917715600138436608 …

        Barry Lyons added,

        History Lovers Club @historylvrsclub
        If a woman needs it, should she be spanked?' News clipping from the New York Daily Mirror, c. 1950s pic.twitter.com/uY3sqvsTJU
        0 replies 0 retweets 3 likes
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      1. Judas Lucifer Booth‏ @tvebluvr420 18 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @JonahNRO @WSJ

        Conservatives and Teabags love to hit kids.

        0 replies 1 retweet 1 like
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      1. New conversation
      2. Raymond McCue  💗⚤ 💜⚣ 💙,  🏳️‍🌈‏ @RayMcCue 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @sapinker @antihero_kate @WSJ

        My issue is #ComparedToWhat Educators and many parents now know lots of positive intervention strategies. Spanking may be much less effective than them, but better than no reaction or one that positively reinforces the bad behavior. Either way, sounds like its day has come.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      3. antihero_kate‏ @antihero_kate 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @RayMcCue @sapinker @WSJ

        You’re very wrong about no reaction. No reaction to mildly inappropriate behavior is extremely effective. Are you a parent? What I’ve noticed is that the melt-downs are almost never about the incident in front of us but rather an accumulation of the day’s stress.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      4. antihero_kate‏ @antihero_kate 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @antihero_kate @RayMcCue and

        Imagine being hit for feeling stressed or overwhelmed. That’s insanity.

        1 reply 0 retweets 1 like
      5. Raymond McCue  💗⚤ 💜⚣ 💙,  🏳️‍🌈‏ @RayMcCue 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @antihero_kate @sapinker @WSJ

        I dont disagree with that and innaction is an important tool in the toolkit People who spank their kids often use it as another tool, and hitting a kid for being grouchy would seem abusive to even them, I think

        2 replies 0 retweets 1 like
      6. Raymond McCue  💗⚤ 💜⚣ 💙,  🏳️‍🌈‏ @RayMcCue 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @RayMcCue @antihero_kate and

        I think this data might be skewed due to those who use spanking as a default I also wonder if good parents of decades past, who would have used spanking as one tool among many, have all migrated to new behavioral frames, leaving less effective parents as the ones who still spank

        1 reply 0 retweets 2 likes
      7. antihero_kate‏ @antihero_kate 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @RayMcCue @sapinker @WSJ

        My instinct is that less intelligent/low self-control people use spanking. They’re not necessarily bad people but they’re just misinformed and/or have low self-control.

        1 reply 0 retweets 0 likes
      8. antihero_kate‏ @antihero_kate 19 Dec 2017
        Replying to @antihero_kate @RayMcCue and

        Plus, on top of all of that, it’s still socially acceptable (in the US).

        2 replies 0 retweets 0 likes
      9. End of conversation

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