Parents’ Aggressive Influences and Children's Aggressive Problem Solutions With Peers

Abstract

This study examined children's aggressive and assertive solutions to hypothetical peer scenarios in relation to parents' responses to similar hypothetical social scenarios and parents' actual marital aggression. The study included 118 children ages 9 to 10 years old and their mothers and fathers. Children's aggressive solutions correlated with same-sex parents' actual marital aggression. For children with mothers who exhibited low actual marital aggression, mothers' aggressive solutions to hypothetical situations corresponded with children's tendencies to propose aggressive but not assertive solutions. In a 3-way interaction, fathers' aggressive solutions to peer scenarios and marital aggression, combined, exacerbated girls' aggressive problem solving but had the opposite effect for boys. We address the complexity, particularly with respect to parent and child gender combinations, in understanding parents' aggressive influences on children's peer relationships.

Family correlates of children's social and physical aggression with peers: Negative interparental conflict strategies and parenting styles

“…These findings are consistent with earlier results showing that mothers' overt and covert regulation strategies were associated with 5-8-yearold children's aggressive behavior in a puppet task (Du Rocher Schudlich et al, 2004). The results here are also similar to findings from a study of adjudicated adolescents, which found that girls' observation of mothers' aggression toward partners was associated with aggression with friends (Moretti et al, 2006), and also with results of a study showing that children's aggressive responses to hypothetical vignettes are related to the same-gender parent's level of marital aggression (Duman & Margolin, 2007). The findings here are consistent both with the same-gender modeling (Snyder, 1998) and differential reactivity hypotheses (Davies & Lindsay, 2001); one way that 558 UNDERWOOD ET AL.…”

“…In support of the same-gender modeling hypothesis (Snyder, 1998), an investigation with adjudicated adolescents in Canada found that mothers' partner aggression was associated with physical aggression toward friends for girls, whereas fathers' partner aggression was associated with aggression toward friends for boys (Moretti, Obsuth, Odgers, & Reebye, 2006). Also supporting same-gender modeling, girls' endorsement of aggression related to mothers' marital aggression, and boys' endorsement of aggression related to fathers' marital aggression (Duman & Margolin, 2007).…”

Association Between Parental Divorce and Anger, Aggression, and Hostility in Adolescents: Results of a National Lebanese Study

“…The results of this study showed that verbal aggression was higher in adolescents of divorced versus married parents, in line with several studies (Duman & Margolin, 2007;Margolin & Baucom, 2014;Rodriguez, 2019). In fact, when parents were divorced, the adolescent felt angry, lost, betrayed, and sad.…”

Ethnic Differences in Parents' Attitudes toward Girls' Use of Aggression

“…Underwood et al (2008) found partial evidence for a same-gender modeling hypothesis in which mothers' conflict resolution styles in marital disputes Downloaded by [University of Western Ontario] at 10:14 16 November 2014 predicted girls' (but not boys') use of physical and relational aggression. Although Duman and Margolin (2007) did not examine children's aggression directly, they found that maternal and paternal self-reports of marital aggression influenced boys' and girls' aggressive solutions to hypothetical scenarios. These findings suggest that future studies should assess the role of parental gender in predicting girls' aggressive behaviors.…”

“…Therefore, we were unable to explore the possibility that parental gender influenced parents' attitude about the acceptability of certain forms of aggression used by their daughters and whether this, in turn, influenced the form of aggression that children tended to utilize. There is some research available that suggests that parent gender differentially influences children's engagement in aggression, with mothers and fathers having different effects on the type of aggression that boys and girls use (Duman & Margolin, 2007;Sears, Rau, & Alpert, 1965;Underwood, Beron, Gentsch, Galperin, & Risser, 2008). Underwood et al (2008) found partial evidence for a same-gender modeling hypothesis in which mothers' conflict resolution styles in marital disputes Downloaded by [University of Western Ontario] at 10:14 16 November 2014 predicted girls' (but not boys') use of physical and relational aggression.…”