Negative parenting and preschoolers’ aggression: Examining effortful control as a moderator

• In Event: Examining the relationship between parenting and young Chinese children’s emotional, sociocognitive, and academic development

Abstract

Negative parenting is a complex construct characterized by coercion, hostility, and psychological control; it has generally been associated with negative child outcomes such as aggression. Using the differential-susceptibility model (Belsky, 2005), different levels of effortful control are assumed to exacerbate or reduce the adverse impact of negative parenting behaviors and increase or decrease children’s risk for aggression. Although the literature has increasingly focused on investigating effortful control as a moderator in the relationship between negative parenting and child aggression, the findings have not been consistent. The inconsistent findings can be attributed to the examination of the interactive effect of effortful control and a single type of negative parenting from either parent on a single form of child aggression. To disentangle the complicated relationships between negative parenting and children’s aggression, this study examined whether physical coercion and psychological control by mothers and fathers can influence preschool children’s use of physical and relational aggression, and whether the relationships are moderated by children’s effortful control. We investigated Hong Kong Chinese children with their parents at two time points. We hypothesized that Time 1 parental physical coercion and psychological control will positively predict Time 2 child physical aggression and relational aggression, especially for children characterized by low effortful control.

A sample of 168 Hong Kong Chinese children (M = 60.97 months, SD = 5.51 months; 88 girls) and their parents were tested twice, six months apart. At Time 1, parents reported their spouse’s as well as their own use of physical coercion and psychological control. A puzzle box task was also administered to assess children’s persistence (effortful control). Specifically, children were instructed to assemble an 11-piece wooden matching puzzle inside a box covered by a cloth, and they were required not to lift the cloth to look inside. At Time 2, mothers, fathers, and teachers of the children completed questionnaires to assess child physical and relational aggression.

Results showed that mothers’ physical coercion associated with child physical and relational aggression, but these associations were not moderated by effortful control. By contrast, fathers’ physical coercion significantly associated with child physical aggression, but it did not significantly associate with child relational aggression, although these two relationships were both moderated by effortful control (see Figure 1). Simple slope analysis results on the two significant interactions showed that when child effortful control was 1 SD below the mean, which indicates that the child had low self-regulation, child physical aggression was more positively predicted by fathers’ physical coercion (β = −.72, p < .001) than it was when child effortful control was 1 SD above the mean (β = −.05, n.s.). Similarly, child relational aggression was positively predicted by fathers’ physical coercion (β = .37, p < .05) when child effortful control was 1 SD lower than the mean, whereas this association was nonsignificant (β = -.16, n.s.) when child effortful control was 1 SD higher than the mean. These results illuminate the associations among different components of negative parenting and child aggression as a function of child temperament.

Authors

• Eva Y.H. Lau, The Education University of Hong Kong
  Presenting Author

• Lei Chang, University of Macau
  Non-Presenting Author

• Juan F Casas, University of Nebraska at Omaha
  Non-Presenting Author