Key takeaways for caregivers
- Adolescents’ aggressive behavior, such as physical fighting, can predict the likelihood of teenagers’ future violence and has other negative implications for families and society more broadly.
- In parents, high levels of warmth and low levels of hostility toward their adolescent children are associated with less aggression in adolescents.
- Closer analysis reveals more specific patterns regarding the relative significance of warmth versus hostility and maternal versus paternal relations with adolescents.
- In our work, the most powerful predictor of adolescents’ aggressive behavior was the hostility shown by the parent whose gender matched the adolescent’s (i.e., maternal hostility toward girls and paternal hostility toward boys).
- An exception to that pattern emerged when we examined boys’ aggression across the adolescent years: While paternal hostility more strongly predicted boys’ aggression during early adolescence, maternal hostility was a stronger predictor during middle adolescence.
- Interventions aimed at reducing aggressive behaviors in adolescents may be most effective when they are tailored to address the most significant predictors for a given age and gender group.
Aggressive behavior in adolescence can have broad and significant negative impacts
Adolescents’ aggressive behavior, such as physical fighting, is a serious health problem that has been researched for decades. This type of behavior can lead to adverse consequences for adolescents themselves, their families, and even society.
For example, adolescents’ aggressive behavior is associated with adolescent violent crimes such as robbery, rape, and homicide. It is also associated with poor self-control and intimate partner violence during adulthood.
In addition to the physical and psychological adverse consequences of this type of behavior for individuals, adolescents’ aggression is costly for society. In 2020, the estimated cost of youth violence in the United States was $122 billion. Thus, understanding the factors that can prevent aggressive behavior during adolescence is critical.
Higher levels of parents’ affective quality (i.e., higher warmth and lower hostility) are associated with lower levels of adolescents’ aggressive behaviors.
Parenting behaviors can influence adolescents’ aggressive behaviors
Families have an impact on adolescent development, with studies finding that parenting behaviors influence adolescents’ aggressive behaviors in Western countries. Several theoretical models address the underlying reasons why parenting has such a strong impact.
Numerous empirical studies have demonstrated that parents’ affective quality (e.g., parental warmth, such as when parents communicate to their children that they care about them, and parental hostility, such as when parents shout at their children because they are angry) is related to adolescents’ aggressive behavior. Higher levels of parents’ affective quality (i.e., higher warmth and lower hostility) are associated with lower levels of adolescents’ aggressive behaviors.
During adolescence, parents’ affective quality and adolescents’ aggressive behavior change dramatically over time. For example, parental warmth decreases and parental hostility increases during adolescence, and youth-reported adolescent aggressive behavior increases over time. Thus, it is important to understand the relation between parents’ affective quality and youth’s aggression over the course of adolescence.
The influences of mothering versus the influences of fathering
The focus of parenting research in Western countries has shifted in recent decades, with more studies investigating the unique contributions of mothers and fathers to adolescent development. Historically and in most cultures, mothers have been the primary caregivers and have been more involved in their children’s development, so maternal parenting may have a stronger influence on children’s development.
In contrast, as fathers become more involved in their children’s development, the effect of paternal parenting on children’s development has risen. But it remains unclear whose parenting – mothers’ or fathers’ – is more important in affecting children’s problem behaviors.
Investigating this question can inform how intervention programs are tailored, making them more efficient and effective. It can also help families understand and focus on the more important dimensions of parenting.
Comparing aspects of parent affective quality: Warmth versus hostility
Similarly, research on the relative importance of parental warmth versus parental hostility in predicting adolescents’ aggression can also help make intervention programs more effective and guide families in focusing on the more important dimensions of parenting to reduce adolescents’ aggression.
Theoretically and across psychological phenomena, behaviors that might be considered “bad” are believed to have a stronger impact on children’s development than behaviors that are considered “good” – perhaps for evolutionary reasons. In light of this general pattern, parents’ negative affective quality (e.g., parental hostility) may be more important in predicting adolescents’ aggression than parents’ positive affective quality (e.g., parental warmth).
Studying the relative impacts of mothers’ and fathers’ warmth and hostility during adolescence
In our research, we focus on and compare maternal warmth, maternal hostility, paternal warmth, and paternal hostility to investigate the relative importance of these aspects of parents’ affective quality in predicting adolescents’ aggression in early to middle adolescence.
Behaviors that might be considered “bad” are believed to have a stronger impact on children’s development than behaviors that are considered “good.”
To capture changes over time, we analyzed five waves of data from a related research project that began in 2001. We used data from Wave 1, which was when the adolescents were in the fall semester of sixth grade (approximately 11 years old), and data from Waves 2 to 5, which were in the spring semester of sixth through ninth grades, respectively (when adolescents were approximately 12-15 years old). About half of the participants were girls, 89% were White, and 72% of adolescents’ parents had at least some college education. All families in this study were two-parent families living in the United States.
Measuring warmth, hostility, and aggression
At each wave of the study, adolescents answered questions about the frequency of maternal and paternal warmth toward them during the last month. For example, on a scale of 1 (always) to 7 (never), they responded to the question of “how often did your mother/father let you know that they appreciate you, your ideas, or the things you do?”
The adolescents also answered questions about the frequency of maternal and paternal hostility toward them. For example, they responded to the question of “how often did your mother/father shout or yell at you because they were mad at you?”
Lastly, adolescents completed the widely used Youth Self Report, which includes a 17-item aggressive behavior subscale. With this tool, youth reported on how frequently they physically attacked people or otherwise showed aggression.
Exploring which aspects of parent affective quality are linked most strongly to adolescents’ aggression
As is well known, in one family, mothers and fathers can influence and be influenced by each other. In our study, we explored mothers’ and fathers’ affective quality using an analytical approach that allowed us to account for the unique impact of each parent’s affective quality above and beyond the impact of their partner’s, as well as the shared impact of both parents’ affective quality together.
Our results: How parental affective quality predicts adolescents’ aggression
Most of the time, mothers’ affective quality predicted adolescents’ aggression more strongly than fathers’, and parental hostility was a stronger predictor of adolescents’ aggression than parental warmth.
Different patterns for adolescent girls and boys
But beneath these general patterns, we found gender differences in the relative importance of parents’ affective quality in predicting aggressive behaviors in girls versus boys. For girls, maternal hostility was more important for predicting aggression throughout the adolescent years than was paternal hostility or maternal warmth.
During adolescence, mother-daughter relationship quality is often said to be better in many families than father-daughter relationship quality. As a result of the closeness of mother-daughter relationships, maternal hostility toward daughters may be more influential, with girls possibly responding more negatively to maternal hostility.
For boys, the relative importance of these aspects of parenting changed over the adolescent years. During early adolescence (ages 12 to 13), paternal affective quality emerged as more important than maternal affective quality. This pattern became more nuanced during middle adolescence (ages 13 to 15).
For boys in this age group, paternal warmth remained more important than maternal warmth. However, maternal hostility became more important than paternal hostility in predicting boys’ aggression during middle adolescence. Some aspect of maternal hostility appeared to be especially powerful for boys during that developmental period.
Parents, especially fathers, may be more involved with their same- than opposite-sex children, as reflected in research in the United States, for example. In those families, fathers’ parenting may be relatively more important for boys than mothers’ parenting. However, maternal hostility may become more important to adolescent boys over time if this hostility differs from expected maternal caretaking-type behaviors.
Implications for families
The relative importance of mothering versus fathering and positive parenting versus negative parenting differs for girls and boys. Mothers’ hostility is more important than fathers’ hostility or mothers’ warmth in predicting adolescent girls’ aggressive behavior. To reduce adolescent girls’ aggressive behavior, we recommend that mothers decrease their hostility toward their daughters.
For adolescent boys, fathering plays a central but more complex role in predicting their aggression. Fathers’ hostility is a strong predictor of boys’ aggression during early adolescence. To help young adolescent boys reduce their aggressive behavior, we suggest that fathers be involved in their sons’ lives and decrease their hostile behaviors to their sons. For older adolescent boys, it may be helpful for mothers to reduce their hostility to their sons.
All the foresaid recommendations are based on the predictive patterns that we found in the study. We do not yet have the data to support the causal relationships.
