Interparental conflict, psychological control, and children's social aggression

Children use social aggression to harm their peers by exclusion, negative gossip, and verbal rejection. Individual children differ in the frequency and intensity with which they engage in these behaviors, and these differences may be related to the behaviors of their parents. Parents engage in manipulative behaviors similar to social aggression in their conflicts with their partner, their triangulation of the child, and their psychological control of their child. This investigation used longitudinal data from a large study of the precursors and outcomes of social aggression to examine the associations between behaviors that may model social aggression and children's social aggression with peers. This longitudinal study utilized mothers' and children's reports of interparental conflict and psychological control as well as teacher reports of children's social aggression across multiple time points. Regression models were used to examine whether parental behaviors predict children's social aggression. Children's sixth grade social aggression was positively related to children's ratings of interparental conflict in the third grade. Also, when other parent variables were controlled for, children's social aggression in the sixth grade was positively related to partners' stonewalling and negatively related to partners' use of child triangulation. Finally, differences in household composition and child ethnicity were associated with differences in children's social aggression. Implications of these findings for future research are discussed.