Perpetration of Adolescent Dating Violence: Child Abuse, Attitudes, Impulsivity, Reactive and Proactive Aggression; Automatic or Complex Processes?

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Adolescent dating violence (ADV) research has neglected the environmental factors at play in contexts of perpetration. This study, conducted in Chile, investigated the socio-cognitive processes inherent to the relationship between child abuse and ADV perpetration by examining the association between child abuse, impulsivity, reactive aggression, proactive aggression, attitudes that rationalize or justify ADV, and actual ADV perpetration. Data were collected from 655 adolescents using self-reported measures of child abuse, impulsivity, reactive and proactive aggression, attitudes justifying ADV, and ADV perpetration using structural equation modeling. Having experienced child abuse predicted higher levels of impulsivity, which in turn predicted higher levels of aggressive traits, both for reactive and proactive aggression. Proactive aggression predicted higher levels of ADV perpetration, whereas reactive aggression did not. While we did not find that child abuse predicted a greater propensity for ADV, nor that such a disposition indicated a higher level of proactive aggression by influencing ADV perpetration, we did find that a positive attitude toward ADV predicted a higher frequency of ADV perpetration. Our results suggest that the socio-cognitive process underlying ADV involves automatic and complex processes stemming from child abuse, thus linking environmental and individual factors.