| This study concerned factors that predicted adolescents' abusive behavior toward their parents. Utilizing structural equation modeling (SEM), the temporal relations between parent-to-parent violence, parent-to-adolescent violence, and adolescent-to-parent violence were assessed. Further, relations between these variables and the gender of both the target adolescent and the parent were analyzed. Results indicated that conflict between parents (reported in 1990, 1991) was related to increases in adolescent-to-parent violence two years later (1992). Additionally, violence directed at adolescents by the parent in 1992 was consistently related to increased reports of violence directed at parents by adolescents in 1994. Finally, the results indicated a significant relation between adolescent-to-parent violence in 1992 and parent-to-adolescent violence in 1994 for adolescent females. Specifically, fathers who reported greater violence directed toward them in 1992 by their adolescent daughters had daughters who reported greater violence directed toward them by their fathers in 1994. An additional aim of this study was to examine adolescent-to-parent aggression as an important variable in the transmission of violence across generations. The results indicated no significant role of adolescent-to-parent violence in the transmission of violence across generations. However, there was a trend for female targets that, if her parents reported higher levels of violence directed at them by their daughter, then her male partner (husband or cohabitating partner) reported higher levels of violence directed toward him some 6 years later. The results of this study provide partial support for Social Learning Theory and Coercive Family Process Model as an explanation of adolescent-to-parent violence, Implications of these findings for the study of family violence and the inter-generational transmission of violence are discussed. |
