Abstract
Harsh parenting and its effect on children’s aggressive behavior has received attention from researchers, however few studies have considered the role of the emotional process. This study aims to examine the relationship between harsh parenting, children’s aggressive behavior, normative beliefs about aggression, and regulatory emotional self-efficacy, alongside their mechanism of interplay. A sample of 235 senior primary school students in Beijing were recruited as participants by using the Harsh Parenting Scale, the Normative Beliefs about Aggression Scale, the Buss–Warren Aggression Questionnaire, and the Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale. Results indicated that: (1) Harsh parenting had a significant positive predictive effect on children’s aggressive behavior after controlling gender; (2) normative beliefs about the aggression of children mediated the relationship between harsh parenting and children’s aggressive behavior; and (3) regulatory emotional self-efficacy had moderating effects both the mediation model of normative beliefs about the aggression of children and in the direct predictive model of harsh parenting on children’s aggressive behavior. The results are not only helpful to understand the relationship between harsh parenting and children’s aggressive behavior from the perspective of an integrated model of emotion processes and cognition, but also provide a new practical way to prevent and intervene in children’s aggressive behavior in the future.
Highlights
Received: 22 December 2021Aggressive behavior refers to disruptive behavior that intentionally causes physical or psychological harm to others [1]
Aggressive behavior can be divided into three forms: physical aggression, verbal aggression, and relational aggression [2]
The results revealed that harsh parenting was positively correlated with children’s aggressive behavior (r = 0.37, p < 0.01), children’s normative beliefs about aggression was positively correlated with gender (r = 0.20, p < 0.01), harsh parenting (r = 0.59, p < 0.01), and children’s aggressive behavior (r = 0.47, p < 0.01)
Summary
Received: 22 December 2021Aggressive behavior refers to disruptive behavior that intentionally causes physical or psychological harm to others [1]. Children’s aggressive behavior can trigger many negative consequences. Relatively high aggressiveness and obvious aggressive behavior in children may affect the development of their attention, reduce academic performance, and produce negative emotions [3,4,5]. Aggressive behavior is closely related to peer victimization and bullying [6]. While aggression can continue to develop and have a lasting impact in adolescence and adulthood [8], externalized behavioral problems generally tend to be stable from early childhood [9]. It is necessary to further understand the development mechanism of children’s aggressive behavior and the factors affecting its development, so as to provide a new direction for the practical work of related prevention and intervention measures
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