Citation

Duman S, Margolin G. J. Clin. Child Adolesc. Psychol. 2007; 36(1): 42-55.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Southern California, 3620 S. McClintock Avenue, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA. duman@usc.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Informa - Taylor and Francis Group)

DOI

10.1207/s15374424jccp3601_5

PMID

17206880

PMCID

PMC2649668

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.

Language: en