The Association Between Parenting and Children’s Reactive and Proactive Aggression, Explained by Specific Social Information Processing Patterns

Abstract

It is widely believed that harsh parenting and a lack of parental supervision contribute significantly to the development of reactive and proactive aggression in children. Social-cognitive models suggest that these relationships might be understood through children’s social information processing (SIP) patterns. Therefore, the current study had two primary objectives: (1) to examine whether harsh parenting is positively associated with children's reactive aggression and if this association can be attributed to children’s tendency to attribute hostile intent to others, and (2) to investigate whether lack of supervision is positively associated with children's proactive aggression and if this association can be explained by children’s tendency to pursue instrumental goals. The study sample comprised 152 Dutch boys, aged 7 to 13, recruited from regular and special education settings for children with behavioural difficulties. The results indicated no direct significant association between parenting behaviours and aggression types, thus no mediation of hostile intent attributions and pursuing instrumental goals. Only a significant association was found between hostile intent attributions and reactive aggression, and between instrumental goals and proactive aggression. Study findings highlight the importance of tailoring interventions to children’s unique (SIP) patterns to reduce aggression effectively. Future research should use a longitudinal design to establish the directions of found effects and construct a better scale for lack of supervision. Keywords: harsh parenting, lack of supervision, reactive aggression, proactive aggression, hostile intent attributions, instrumental goals, social information processing patterns.