Parents’ Search Term Selection and the Likelihood of Obtaining Evidence-Based Information about Spanking

• In Event: Insights about Parenting from Social Media and Other Online Platforms

Abstract

The widespread use of the Internet to access and share parenting information (Baker et al., 2017; LaMarre et al., 2015) means that misinformation about how spanking influences child development is rampant online. Parents who favor spanking may justify their attitudes by searching for websites that present opinion-based justifications for spanking rather than evidence for why spanking is harmful for children. By using biased information-seeking strategies that retrieve only information that confirms their attitudes (Schmidt et al., 2017), parents can avoid the cognitive dissonance associated with encountering evidence-based information incongruent with their understanding of childrearing (Case et al., 2005). In this study, we estimated the presence of key justifications for spanking in websites generated by three sets of search terms about spanking and then examined whether parents who favor spanking would select search terms and websites that presented justifications for spanking.

We first conducted nine searches on Google using three base search terms varying by three valences. The three base search terms were “spanking,” “physical discipline,” and “physical punishment.” The three added valences were “benefits” (positive), “risks” (negative), or a neutral valence with no other word attached to the search term. We coded the top ten sites generated by each search term combination (some searches generated nine). A total of 85 websites were coded for the presence of key justifications for spanking children.

We then recruited 596 parents of children 2-8 years old using the online recruitment tool Prolific (www.prolific.co). This sample was mostly White (78%) and middle-income (53%). In a simulated search, parents selected one of the nine search terms and then selected one of the corresponding websites. Parents reported their attitudes toward spanking (Holden, 2001), indicated how frequently they spanked in the last month, and completed a scientific literacy quiz about how spanking influences development.

In total, 32 (37.6%) websites presented justifications for spanking (see Table 1). Justifications were more common among websites retrieved by searching for spanking benefits (F(2, 82) = 14.11, p < .001). An average of 2.25 (SD = 2.14) justifications were presented per website within the spanking benefits search results, compared to 0.66 (SD = 1.49) justifications within the neutral search results and 0.18 (SD = .48) justifications within the spanking risks search results. Table 2 shows results from logistic regressions predicting parents’ search term and website selection. Parents with positive attitudes toward spanking were more likely to search for the benefits of spanking over the risks of spanking or neutral search terms. They were also more likely to select websites that lacked scientific research, presented justifications for spanking, and recommended using spanking.

The results suggest that spanking attitudes may be perpetuated through parents’ information-seeking behavior confirming their previously held attitudes. Pediatricians and health professionals should be aware of the potential for parents to encounter justifications for spanking online and should consider providing links to quality parenting resources during visits. Scientists, public officials, and tech companies need to work together to develop new ways of promoting evidence-based recommendations and removing or labeling misinformation.

Authors

• Justin Kyle Scott, University of Maryland, Baltimore
  Presenting Author

• Elizabeth T. Gershoff, University of Texas at Austin
  Non-Presenting Author