Processes underlying children's responses to witnessing physical aggression in their families

Abstract

This study used structural equation modeling to test the hypotheses that intra-family aggression affects children: (1) because of observational learning/modeling of aggressive behaviour, and (2) because intra-family aggression disrupts mother's ability to provide warm, responsive parenting. This study examined whether there were effects due to the child's age or gender, and if there were differences depending on whether the information was provided from the mother or the child.