Attitudes toward sibling and parent -child aggression in female Singaporeans: Family experiences and cultural identification

This study was designed to investigate attitudes toward aggression within the context of sibling and parent-child relationships in Singaporean females. Types of attitudes investigated were judgments of the typicality and abusiveness of aggressive behavior and beliefs about both the expressive and instrumental functions of aggression.;Based on Bronfenbrenner's (1977) macrostructural analysis of immediate and larger social contexts of development, variables within three levels of influence (microsystem, mesosystem and macrosystem) were investigated to test their utility in predicting these attitudinal variables. Independent variables included collectivistic-individualistic cultural identification at the macrosystem level, witnessed sibling and parental aggression at the mesosystem level, and individual level of aggressiveness and both experienced and perpetrated intrafamilial aggression at the microsystem level.;A sample of 204 Singaporean female students was solicited through flyers posted on college campuses. Participants completed survey packets including measures of behavioral aggression, attitudes toward aggression, judgments of the typicality of aggressive behaviors, cultural identification, and intrafamilial conflict tactics.;A series of stepwise multiple regressions revealed that a collectivistic cultural identification contributed positively to judgments of the typicality of physical and psychological aggression across both parent-child and sibling relationships and to higher expressive and lower instrumental beliefs about aggression. In addition, degree of experience with parents' reasoning tactics contributed negatively to judgments of the abusiveness of physically and psychologically aggressive behaviors.;Results suggest that at the level of the macrosystem, a collectivistic cultural identification plays an important role in judgments of the typicality of intrafamilial aggression and in beliefs about the uses of aggression. At the level of the mesosystem, experienced mother-child psychological aggression is an important predictor of judgments of the typicality of parent-child aggression, while perpetrated sibling aggression is an important predictor of judgments of the typicality of sibling aggression. Only one factor at the level of the microsystem (experienced parent-child reasoning) is a significant predictor of judgments of the abusiveness of both physically and psychologically aggressive behaviors within sibling and parent-child relationships. Thus, this study supports the importance of examining the development of human social processes at meso- and macro-system levels, and not just at an individual level of analysis.