A Test of Various Perspectives on the Intergenerational Transmission of Domestic Violence*

Abstract

Past research indicates that adults who were subject to severe physical discipline as children are often violent toward their spouse and children as adults. This association is usually attributed to modeling or the learning of attitudes that legitimate hitting family members. Using four waves of data from a sample of midwestern families, this study found only limited support for these explanations. Analysis showed that the relationship between childhood exposure to harsh parenting and recurrent adult violence toward children or a spouse was mediated by the extent to which parents displayed an antisocial orientation. This pattern of findings is consistent with criminological theories that view criminal and deviant behavior of all sorts as rooted in a general antisocial orientation acquired in childhood largely as a result of ineffective parenting.

Intergenerational and Partner Influences on Fathers’ Negative Discipline

“…Specifically, poor and harsh parenting practices have been found to predict adolescent antisocial behavior (Dishion, French, & Patterson, 1995), which shows significant stability into adulthood (Wiesner, Kim, & Capaldi, 2005); and adult antisocial behavior has been found to predict harsh and inconsistent discipline and poor supervision of the subsequent generation (Capaldi & Clark, 1998;Patterson & Capaldi, 1991), as well as problem behavior in the subsequent generation via negative discipline (e.g., Patterson & Dishion, 1988). Adolescent antisocial behavior has been identified recently as a potential mediator in the transmission of parenting practices (e.g., Capaldi et al, 2003;Hops et al, 2003).The links between adolescent antisocial behavior and later poor parenting have been established (Patterson & Capaldi, 1991;Serbin & Karp, 2003;Simons, Wu, Johnson, & Conger, 1995) and, in general, implicate the myriad developmental failures associated with problem behavior (e.g., Capaldi & Stoolmiller, 1999), as well as an accumulating burden of risk that young parents carry as they form families of procreation. Furthermore, the risk that problem behavior confers to parents and children may be compounded through the welldocumented phenomenon of assortative partnering (e.g.…”

“…The links between adolescent antisocial behavior and later poor parenting have been established (Patterson & Capaldi, 1991;Serbin & Karp, 2003;Simons, Wu, Johnson, & Conger, 1995) and, in general, implicate the myriad developmental failures associated with problem behavior (e.g., Capaldi & Stoolmiller, 1999), as well as an accumulating burden of risk that young parents carry as they form families of procreation. Furthermore, the risk that problem behavior confers to parents and children may be compounded through the welldocumented phenomenon of assortative partnering (e.g.…”

Intimate Partner Violence During the Transition from Prison to the Community: An Ecological Analysis

“…Oftentimes these characteristics consequently play a role in the formation of insecure adult attachments characterized by fear of abandonment, jealousy, distrust, and anger, which are known predictors of intimate partner violence (Dutton, 1998). Other studies have found that interparental violence is often associated with poor parenting ability and harsh treatment during childhood, which may lead to antisocial personality traits and the perpetration of domestic violence in adulthood (Simons, Wu, Johnson, & Conger, 1995). Given this prior literature, I expected to find significant interactions between family-of-origin violence and personality characteristics among offenders in the current study.…”

Social Networks of Intimate Partner Violence Perpetrators

“…Though identifying the specific social structures that facilitate IPV may be key to understanding and effectively intervening in abusive behavior (Michalski, 2004), individuals often come in contact with these structural features that encourage or discourage violent confrontation with intimate others within more proximal contexts, specifically, their social networks. Patterns of abusive behavior may be transmitted through familial (Capaldi & Clark, 1998;Simons, Wu, Johnson & Conger, 1995) or peer (Brown & Messman-Moore, 2010;Browning, 2002;Dishion, Patterson & Griesler, 1994;Erickson, 1988;Schwartz & DeKeseredy, 1997) influences;…”