NCJ Number
215848
Journal
Violence and Victims Volume: 21 Issue: 5 Dated: October 2006 Pages: 597-610
Date Published
October 2006
Length
14 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of family and peers on adolescent behavior in relation to youth dating violence.
Abstract
Results indicate that exposure to current family conflict and current peer conflict, but not prior family violence, is independently associated with the extent of an adolescent’s aggressive anger expression or their acceptance of both types of cross-gender aggression. Overall, current conflict in either an adolescent’s family life or in their peer group seems to be more influential than past family violence in shaping their anger expression and their standards of acceptable dating behaviors during adolescence. These findings suggest that interventions for adolescents that are targeted toward reducing current conflict in their lives, either in their family or in their peer group, may be beneficial. Research on partner violence involving adolescents has been neglected over the last few decades. To address this gap in research, this study investigated the relative influence of current and prior conflict among family members’ and peers’ aggression in a sample composed of largely Latino teens to measure their own rates of dating violence perpetration and victimization. Measures of anger expression and cross-gender aggression were used. The study also investigated two potential moderators for the hypothesized relationships: parental control and parental attachment. Tables, references