Husbands' aggression toward wives and mothers' and fathers' aggression toward children: Moderating effects of child gender.

Abstract

This study assesses the role of child gender in moderating the association between husbands' aggression toward wives and parental aggression toward children. Participants were 73 mothers who experienced at least one incident of marital aggression during the past 12 months. Each mother had a child between 5 and 16 years of age. Hierarchical regression analyses indicate that the Husbands' Aggression Toward Wives x Child Gender interaction contributed unique variance to the prediction of both mothers' and fathers' aggression toward children after husbands' aggression toward wives, child gender, and child age were controlled. Pearson correlations indicate that husbands' aggression toward wives correlated positively with mothers' and fathers' aggression toward boys but not toward girls.