你也许认为，孩子不听话，打两下屁股不算体罚，然而新研究发现，打屁股对儿童大脑发育产生的负面影响和暴力虐待几乎是一样的。

 

Spanking¹ may affect a child's brain development in similar ways to more severe forms of violence, according to a new study led by Harvard researchers.

哈佛大学研究人员领头的一项新研究表明，打屁股对儿童大脑发育的影响，可能与更严重的暴力虐待造成的后果类似。

 

The research, published recently in the journal Child Development, builds on existing studies that show heightened activity in certain regions of the brains of children who experience abuse in response to threat cues.

这篇最近发表在《儿童发育》期刊上的论文基于现有的一些研究，这些研究发现，遭受虐待的儿童在应对威胁时大脑的特定区域活动会增强。

 

The group found that children who had been spanked² had a greater neural³ response in multiple regions of the prefrontal cortex (PFC). These areas of the brain respond to cues in the environment that tend to be consequential⁴, such as a threat, and may affect decision-making and processing of situations.

研究团队发现，打屁股会增强儿童大脑前额叶皮层多个区域的神经反应。大脑的这些区域会根据环境中的威胁等信号做出反应，并可能影响儿童的决策以及对局势的分析能力。

 

"We know that children whose families use corporal punishment are more likely to develop anxiety, depression, behavior problems, and other mental health problems, but many people don't think about spanking as a form of violence," said Katie A. McLaughlin, senior researcher on the study. "In this study, we wanted to examine whether there was an impact of spanking at a neurobiological level, in terms of how the brain is developing."

该研究的高级研究员凯蒂·A·麦克劳林表示：“我们知道，遭受体罚的孩子更容易出现焦虑、抑郁、行为问题和其他心理健康问题，但是许多人并不会把打屁股看作暴力行为。在这项研究中，我们想从神经生物学层面看看打屁股是否对大脑发育有影响。”

 

According to the study's authors, corporal punishment has been linked to the development of mental health issues, anxiety, depression, behavioral problems, and substance use disorders⁵. And recent studies show that approximately half of parents in US studies reported spanking their children in the past year and one-third in the past week. However, the relationship between spanking and brain activity has not previously⁶ been studied.

研究作者指出，体罚一直和心理健康问题、焦虑、抑郁、行为问题和药物滥用有关。最近的研究显示，美国约半数父母报告称在过去一年打过孩子，三分之一在过去一周打过。然而，还未有人研究过打屁股和大脑活动之间的关系。

 

McLaughlin and her colleagues analyzed⁷ data from a large study of children between the ages of three and 11. They focused on 147 children around ages 10 and 11 who had been spanked, excluding children who had also experienced more severe forms of violence.

麦克劳林和同事们分析了一项涵盖了3岁到11岁儿童的大型研究的数据。他们重点关注了147名被打过屁股的10岁到11岁儿童，但不包括曾遭受更严重暴力虐待的儿童。

 

Each child lay in an MRI machine and watched a computer screen on which were displayed different images of actors making "fearful" and "neutral" faces. A scanner captured the child's brain activity in response to each kind of face, and those images were analyzed to determine whether the faces sparked different patterns of brain activity in children who were spanked compared to those who were not.

每个孩子接受核磁共振成像扫描时，面前的电脑屏幕会播放演员做出的“恐惧”和“中立”表情。扫描仪会在屏幕播放不同表情时捕获孩子的大脑活动，研究人员对这些大脑成像进行分析，以确定被打过屁股的孩子的大脑活动是否和没被打过屁股的孩子有所不同。

 

"On average, across the entire sample, fearful faces elicited⁸ greater activation⁹ than neutral faces in many regions throughout the brain... and children who were spanked demonstrated greater activation in multiple regions of PFC to fearful relative to neutral faces than children who were never spanked," researchers wrote.

研究人员写道：“平均而言，在所有样本中，恐惧的脸引发的大脑多个区域的反应都比中立的脸要强烈……相比从未被打过屁股的孩子，那些被打过屁股的孩子看到恐惧的脸时大脑前额叶皮层多个区域产生的反应更大。”

 

By contrast, "there were no regions of the brain where activation to fearful relative to neutral faces differed between children who were abused and children who were spanked."

相比之下，“被虐待的孩子和被打屁股的孩子在看到恐惧的脸时，大脑任何区域的反应都没什么不同。”

 

The findings are in line with similar research conducted on children who had experienced severe violence, suggesting that "while we might not conceptualize corporal punishment to be a form of violence, in terms of how a child's brain responds, it's not all that different than abuse," said McLaughlin. "It's more a difference of degree than of type."

麦克劳林表示，这些研究发现与一项针对遭受严重暴力儿童开展的类似研究结论相一致，表明“尽管我们不会将体罚视为暴力行为，但从儿童的大脑反应来看，体罚和暴力并没有太大区别。更多的是程度上的差异，而非本质差异。”

 

Ultimately, added McLaughlin, "we're hopeful that this finding may encourage families not to use this strategy, and that it may open people's eyes to the potential negative consequences of corporal punishment in ways they haven't thought of before."

最后，麦克劳林补充道：“我们希望这一发现可以鼓励家庭不要使用体罚策略，或许这一研究能以人们从未想过的方式让他们看到体罚的潜在负面影响。”

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