Abstract

The present review has the primary goal of describing the state of the art of the relationship between parental use of physical discipline and children's externalizing symptoms. Externalizing symptomatology is more associated to harsh than to mild physical discipline. While the association between the frequency of corporal punishment and the development of externalizing symptoms is still debated. Moreover, there is a corpus of literature that focused on the transactional effects of the examined constructs: corporal punishment and externalizing symptoms tend to reinforce each other. Finally, researches concerning the mediational role of physical punishment in the link between specific psychosocial factors and externalizing symptomatology will be analysed.