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Moderating effects of family environment on the association between children's aggressive beliefs and their aggression trajectories from childhood to adolescence

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  15 January 2009

Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas  and
Malcolm W. Watson
Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas*
Affiliation:
Brown University
Malcolm W. Watson
Affiliation:
Brandeis University
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Jasmina Burdzovic Andreas, Warren Alpert Medical School, Department of Community Health, Center for Population Health and Clinical Epidemiology, Brown University, 121 S. Main Street, Providence, RI 02912; E-mail: [email protected].
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Abstract

This study explored how children's aggressive beliefs and their family environments combine to influence the development of child aggression from middle childhood into adolescence. We utilized a “variable-centered” empirical approach, specifically examining whether children's aggressive beliefs represent a risk factor for their aggressive behaviors and whether this risk can be moderated by children's family environment. These questions were tested with individual growth modeling, using the data from a community-representative sample of 440 mother–child dyads, interviewed four times over a 6-year study period. The accelerated longitudinal design of the study enabled examination of children's aggression trajectories from age 7 to age 19. The results supported the hypothesis that elevated aggressive beliefs in children represent a risk factor for aggression, as higher aggressive beliefs were associated with greater aggression at the youngest age, as well as with increased aggression over time. However, as hypothesized, family environment moderated this association, such that changes in children's aggression over time were contingent upon the interaction of their aggressive beliefs with family environment. Specifically, aggression was reduced in children with high aggressive beliefs if they experienced better than average family environment, which included less family conflict and more family cohesion.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 21 , Issue 1 , January 2009 , pp. 189 - 205
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2009

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