Abstract
This chapter argues that corporal punishment is the result of an essential conflict between parent and offspring, as parents try to balance the competing demands of their lives. It begins with a brief overview of parental-investment theory, which predicts that parent-offspring conflict will occur as a consequence of the parents' attempts to maximize their reproductive success by distributing parental care across all of the offspring they can produce in their lifetime. Conflict of interest between parents and offspring produces attempts by the parents to limit offspring behavior, resistance by the offspring, and escalation to corporal punishment. Parent-offspring conflict theory is then used to explain variation in the form and frequency of punishment by primate mothers according to the age and sex of the offspring, the presence of siblings, and the mother's reproductive opportunities and socioeconomic circumstances.
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