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Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, Vol. 31, No. 2, April 2003, pp. 143160 ( 2003)
Angry and Aggressive Behavior Across Three Generations: A Prospective, Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children
Rand D. Conger,1,4 Tricia Neppl,2 Kee Jeong Kim,1 and Laura Scaramella3
Received April 11, 2002; revision received October 18, 2002; accepted October 22, 2002
This investigation examined intergenerational continuities in both angry, aggressive parenting and also the angry, aggressive behavior of children and adolescents. Data from 75 G2 youth (26 men, 49 women, M = 22-years old), their mothers (G1), and their G3 children (47 boys, 28 girls, M = 2.4-years old)
were included in the analyses. The prospective, longitudinal design of the study, which included observational and multiinformant measures, overcame many of the methodological limitations found in much of the earlier research on intergenerational transmission. The results demonstrated a direct connection between observed G1 aggressive parenting and observed G2 aggressive parenting from 5 to 7 years later. G2 aggressive behavior as an adolescent and G3 aggressive behavior as a child were related to parenting behavior but not directly to one another. The results were consistent with a social learning perspective on intergenerational continuities in angry and aggressive behaviors.
KEY WORDS: anger; aggression; parenting; intergenerational continuities.
Several recent reviews and a special section in the 1998 volume of Developmental Psychology demonstrate increasing scientic interest in continuities and discontinuities in personal characteristics and parenting behaviors across multiple generations within the same family (Patterson, 1998; Putallaz, Costanzo, Grimes, & Sherman, 1998; Serbin & Stack, 1998; Van IJzendoorn, 1992). In this tradition this study uses prospective, longitudinal data to examine intergenerational continuities both in angry, hostile, and aggressive parenting and also in the angry, aggressive behavior of children.
In the following introduction, we rst review ndings from earlier research on the intergenerational transmission of both parenting and the aggressive behavior of children. This review also examines the methodological limitations
1Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis, California.
2Institute for Social and Behavioral Research, Iowa State University, Ames, Iowa.
3Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, Louisiana.
4Address all correspondence to Rand D. Conger, Department of Human and Community Development, University of California, Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, California 95616; e-mail: rdconger@ ucdavis.edu.
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