Abstract
The relationship between parenting styles and teen dating violence has become a relevant research topic in recent years, especially related to violence inflicted online. To more fully understand this relationship, the objective of the present study was to examine which parenting style (authoritarian, indulgent, authoritative, or neglectful) best protects against dating violence in adolescent relationships. A total of 1132 adolescents of both sexes participated in this study (46.4% boys and 53.6% girls), with ages between 14 and 18 years old (M = 15.6, SD = 1.3). A multivariate factorial design was applied (MANOVA, 4 × 2), using the parenting style, the parents’ gender, and the adolescents’ gender as independent variables, and the dating violence dimensions (online and offline) as dependent variables. As the results show, the lowest scores on all the dating violence dimensions examined were obtained by adolescents from indulgent families. In addition, three interaction effects were observed between the mother’s parenting style and the adolescent’s gender on online violence (e-violence and control), and the father’s parenting style on offline violence (verbal-emotional). Thus, adolescents with authoritarian mothers obtained the highest scores on violence and control inflicted online, respectively, and adolescent girls with authoritarian fathers obtained the highest scores on verbal-emotional violence. These findings suggest that the indulgent style is the parenting style that protects against violence in teen dating relationships, and they also highlight the risks of the authoritarian style as a family child-rearing model.
Highlights
After decades of silence, recent investigations have included the study of the prevalence of the use of violent behaviors to resolve conflicts in adolescent dating relationships [1,2]
Despite the limitations, the results of this study provide suggestive information about the relationship between the parenting style and teen dating violence, and they show the relationship between the two contexts in adolescents who perform this type of violence
It is important to point out, perhaps as the main contribution of the present study, the results obtained for the interactions among the parenting style, dating violence, and the adolescents’ gender
Summary
Recent investigations have included the study of the prevalence of the use of violent behaviors to resolve conflicts in adolescent dating relationships [1,2]. 90% in some studies [3,4] The magnitude of these differences could indicate that the cases of dating violence vary in different contexts and countries. These discrepancies are probably due to different operationalizations of the construct and/or other questions related to the measurement instruments’ design. Despite these inconsistencies in the type of measurement used, there is a strong consensus in the scientific community that dating violence has serious consequences for the victims’. Dating violence refers to repeated and abusive behaviors used by adolescent boyfriends toward their girlfriends or ex-girlfriends in order to have dominion and control over them and the relationship, usually in situations where they are not living together [7]
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