Interaction of Parental Discipline Strategies and Adolescents’ Personality Traits in the Prediction of Child-to-Parent Violence

• Published in: The European journal of psychology applied to legal context Vol. 15; no. 1; pp. 43 - 52
• Main Authors: Jiménez-Granado, Aitor, Hoyo-Bilbao, Joana del, Fernández-González, Liria
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Portuguese
• Published: Madrid Colegio Oficial de Psicólogos (PSICODOC) 01.01.2023; Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense; Colegio Oficial de la Psicología de Madrid; Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense
• Subjects: adolescents; Aggressiveness; Authoritarianism; Behavior; Behavioral Sciences; borderline personality traits; Child development; Child discipline; child-to-parent aggression; Corporal punishment; Cross-sectional studies; Domestic violence; Families & family life; Law; Longitudinal studies; Mothers; parental discipline strategies; Parents & parenting; Personality; Personality traits; Psychology; psychopathic traits; Teenagers; Child-to-parent aggression; Disciplina parental; Parental discipline strategies; Rasgos psicopáticos; Psychopathic traits; Rasgos límite de personalidad; Adolescentes; Borderline personality traits; Adolescents; Violencia filioparental
• ISSN: 1889-1861; 1989-4007; 1989-4007
• DOI: 10.5093/ejpalc2023a5

Background: Child-to-parent violence is a family issue that needs a systemic and integral approach for its evaluation. The main objective of this longitudinal study was to assess the moderating effects of adolescents' borderline personality and psychopathic traits (grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, and impulsive-irresponsible dimensions) in the predictive association between inadequate parental strategies (psychological aggression, corporal punishment, and ignoring misbehavior) and child-to-parent violence. Sex differences were analyzed. Method: The community sample comprised 671 adolescents aged from 12 to 17 years old (Mage = 13.39, SD = 1.15; 50.8% girls, 47.7% boys, and 1.5% non-binary), assessed twice, six months apart from each other. Results: Results showed slightly different patterns of violence towards fathers and mothers - ignoring misbehavior predicted aggression toward mothers, while psychological aggression predicted aggression toward fathers. Moderation analyses showed that the predictive association from ignoring misbehavior to both child-to-father violence (CFV) and child-to-mother violence (CMV) was only significant for adolescents who were high in the psychopathic trait of callous-unemotional, and the predictive association from psychological aggression to CFV was only significant in those adolescents who scored low in the borderline personality trait. Some sex specificities emerged. Conclusions: These findings support the relevance of working on parents' discipline strategies and add the need to work on adolescents' emotional regulation to prevent or deal with childto-parent violence.