Citation

Bjorkqvist K, Osterman K. Aggressive Behav. 1992; 18(6): 411-423.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1992, International Society for Research on Aggression, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Parental influence on children's self-estimated aggressiveness was measured with inventories. One hundred seventy-four adolescents (85 girls and 89 boys; mean age 13.6 years, SD 0.7) from a suburban school, known as prone to problems of aggression, served as subjects. The dependent variable aggressive personality was measured with the Buss-Durkee Hostility Inventory [J Consult Psychol 21:343, 1974]. Parental influence was measured with scales specifically developed for the present research. The subjects estimated: 1) their emotional relation to each parent; and 2) their perception of how their parents a and b) behave when in anger (the "Anger Scale") as well as how they themselves behave when angry c) at home and d) with their peers. The results revealed clearly gender-specific effects: mothers and fathers affected sons and daughters differently. According to LISREL analyses, mothers had a clearly stronger impact on sons, while fathers had a slightly stronger effect on daughters. In the case of fathers, hitting and alcohol abuse were, in addition to a negative emotional relationship, strong predictors of daughters' aggressiveness. However, aggressive fathers tended in general to get a counterreaction with their sons, leading to low aggressiveness with the same type of behavior in their case. Typical maternal predictors of children's aggressiveness were shouting and a negative emotional relationship. In the case of daughters, the former was a more important predictor than the latter, but in the case of sons, it was the other way around. Modeling effects were revealed: subjects imitated their parents' styles of behavior in anger, however, with different patterns at home and with peers. The results may be interpreted as support for both the cognitive learning and the frustration-aggression hypotheses as sources for aggressive behavior.