Harsh parenting and children's peer relationships: Testing the indirect effect of child overt aggression as moderated by child impulsivity

Abstract

Although harsh parenting has been found to be a risk factor for poor peer relationships, less is known about the mediating and moderating mechanisms underlying this relation. Mainly guided by the person-environment interaction model, we tested a moderated mediation model to examine the mediating role of child overt aggression between harsh parenting and peer acceptance and whether this indirect association was moderated by child impulsivity. Eight hundred and twenty-four Chinese sixth to eighth graders with their parents and classmates were recruited as participants who completed questionnaires on harsh parenting, child impulsivity, child overt aggression and peer acceptance. Results indicated that the negative association between harsh parenting and adolescents' peer acceptance was mediated by child overt aggression. Moreover, the indirect effect of harsh parenting on peer acceptance was much stronger for adolescents with higher impulsivity. These findings suggest that reducing harsh parenting may be a way to reduce child aggression, especially for children with high impulsivity.

Keywords

adolescent harsh parenting impulsivity overt aggression peer acceptance

Researchers have been long interested in the linkages between familial antecedents and children's peer relationship (Kerns, Contreras, & Neal-Barnett, 2000; Ooi, Ang, Fung, Wong, & Cai, 2006; Shin & Kim, 2008). Parenting behaviors could function as models for children's peer interactions. The model of family-peer linkages similarly suggests that parents could influence children's peer relationship quality by training them in social skills for peer settings (Parke, Burks, Carson, Neville, & Boyum, 1994). As peers afford various opportunities for socialization and a sense of belonging outside of the family context (Rubin & Coplan, 1992), adolescents attach more importance to peer relations. The current study examines whether harsh parenting is related to children's peer relationships via the indirect role of child overt aggression, and whether child impulsivity moderates this indirect relationship.

Child overt aggression as the mediator

Harsh parenting comprises a wide range of parents' physical and verbal aggression toward children such as yelling, shouting, beating, etc. (Tang, Deng, Du, & Wang, 2017). For conceptual clarity, harsh parenting should be differentiated from child abuse, which mainly includes physical abuse, emotional abuse, sexual abuse, and child neglect (Herrenkohl, 2005). Comparatively, research on harsh parenting mainly focuses on physical and verbal forms of child abuse. Harsh parenting has been found to be associated negatively with peer functioning. Peers react more negatively to children of intrusive mothers (Pettit & Harrist, 1993). Children may apply their dysfunctional emotional regulation strategies learned from parent-child interactions to peer settings, resulting in peer exclusion (Parke, Cassidy, Burks, Carson, & Boyum, 1992). Children who are harshly treated by parents tend to form attachment insecurity, which is detrimental to their interactions with peers (Kerns, Cole, & Andrews, 1998). Although extant research supports the relationship between harsh parenting and low peer acceptance, less attention has been paid to the indirect variables (i.e., how harsh parenting relates to low peer acceptance) and the moderating variables (i.e., when the indirect effect of harsh parenting on peer acceptance is more potent) in the association between harsh parenting and peer acceptance.

Harsh parenting may have the potential to contribute to child aggressive behaviors. Parental attitudes favoring harsh rearing have been shown to be associated with proactive aggression in preschoolers (Kimonis et al., 2006). Parents endorsing harsh discipline tend to have children with more externalizing behaviors (Loginova & Slobodskaya, 2017). Harsh parenting may result in children's beliefs in aggressive behaviors as rational means of obtaining personal goals (Ross & Howe, 2009). Children's aggressive behaviors mainly consist of overt and relational types of aggression (Crick, 1996). Overt aggression mainly comprises physical and verbal aggression, with the former inflicting bodily harm through acts such as hitting and shoving, and with the latter producing painful feelings in other people through verbal abuse such as taunting. Consistent with social learning theory, children could acquire various aggressive behaviors by observing and modeling their parents' similar behaviors. Specifically, negative parent-child interactions could function as a training ground for socializing children's aggressive behaviors (Patterson, Reid, & Dishion, 1992). Given that harsh parenting mainly assumes physical and verbal forms of parental aggression, children should be more likely to acquire overt aggression by observing and mimicking their parents.

Extant research indicates that aggressive behaviors are associated with peer difficulties (Rubin, Bukowski, & Parker, 1998). Tomada and Schneider (1997) have revealed that peer nominated overt aggression is associated with peer rejection. Similarly, Crick (1996) has shown that children's overt aggression predicts peer rejection for third- through sixth-graders. As in Western cultures, children's overt aggression has also been shown to be related to poor peer relationships for Chinese children (Chen, Rubin, & Li, 1995). Chinese cultures attach great importance to group harmony and individuals' responsibility to group (Markus, Mullally, & Kitayama, 1997). One important goal of Chinese parenting is to make children conform to group norms (Chao, 1994). Therefore, aggressive behaviors are generally prohibited and seriously punished in Chinese culture because of their potential to disrupt group cohesiveness (Chen & French, 2008). Integrating the association between harsh parenting and child aggression and the association between children's overt aggression and peer relationships, it could be inferred that harsh parenting might be indirectly associated with peer relationship via child overt aggression.

Child impulsivity as a moderator

Conceptualized as the proclivity to act on the spur of the moment, impulsivity is composed of multiple elements, such as neuroticism, negative emotionality, disinhibition, and lack of self regulation (Sharma, Markon, & Clark, 2014). Individuals high in impulsiveness tend to act without much forethought of the aftermath of their behaviors. More pertinent to our study, children's impulsivity has been found to be closely associated with their aggressive behaviors (Dahlen, Martin, Ragan, & Kuhlman, 2004; Vigil-Colet & Codorniu-Raga, 2004).

An individual's development mainly takes place through proximal processes, especially his or her reciprocal interactions with persons in the immediate environment over extended periods of time (Bronfenbrenner & Morris, 2006). Apparently, harsh parenting forms one negative proximal process for children's development. According to the personal-environment interaction model (Sroufe & Egeland, 1991), different groups of people tend to be differentially affected by the same environmental factors. Thus, harsh parenting may be differentially associated with overt aggression for children with different levels of impulsivity. Specifically, harsh parenting might be more strongly associated with overt aggression for children with high impulsivity.

The present study

To sum up, this study examines the indirect role of children's overt aggression in the association between harsh parenting and low peer acceptance, and whether this indirect relation could be moderated by children's impulsivity. Based on the preceding literature, we proposed two hypotheses as follows.
Hypothesis 1 : Harsh parenting is positively associated with children's overt aggression, which is further negatively associated with peer acceptance. Namely, child overt aggression plays an indirect role in the association between harsh parenting and children's peer acceptance. Hypothesis 2 : The indirect relation between harsh parenting and peer acceptance via overt aggression is moderated by child impulsivity. Specifically, harsh parenting is more strongly associated with overt aggression for children with higher impulsivity.
These hypotheses were tested through a moderated mediation model (Figure 1). These questions were addressed in a sample of primary school students recruited from rural areas of mainland China. Demographic variables such as age, gender, and socioeconomic status were controlled for in the statistical analyses because they have been found to be associated with child aggression (Karriker-Jaffe, Foshee, Ennett, & Suchindran, 2008; Murray et al., 2014).
Figure 1.
The Proposed Moderated Mediation Model of harsh parenting and child peer acceptance.

Method

Participants

Participants were 833 fourth to sixth graders recruited from 20 classrooms in two primary schools in Shandong province of China. Convenience sampling was performed to select four classes from each grade, totaling 865 students as possible participants. Complete data were available for 833 students (475 boys and 349 girls). The mean age was 11.56 years (SD = 0.89, range = 9 ∼ 12). The demographics information showed that, 43% of the fathers and 56.3% of the mothers had an educational level below high school; 12.8% of the fathers and 17.5% of the mothers earn monthly income below 3000 yuan. The missing data were handled through expectation-maximization (Little & Rubin, 2002).

Measures

Harsh parenting

Parents reported on four items from previous research (Tang et al., 2017; Wang, Deng, & Du, 2018) to assess harsh parenting by fathers and mothers separately. These four items were as follows: When my children did something wrong, I would ‘lose temper or even yell at them’, ‘use an object to beat them’, ‘beat them using my hands or feet’, and ‘tell them to get out or even lock them in a house by themselves’. For each item, parents were asked to indicate how likely they would behave like that toward children (1 = never like that; 5 = always like that). The level of harsh parenting was computed by averaging items across fathers and mothers, with satisfactory reliability for harsh fathering and harsh mothering (α = 0.77 and α = 0.73).

Child overt aggression

Peer nomination procedure was used to assess child aggressive behaviors using items from previous research (Crick & Gropeter, 1995). Physical aggression was assessed using the following three items: ‘gets into fights with other children,’ ‘hits, shoves, or pushes other children’, and ‘threaten to hit other children’. Verbal aggression was assessed using the following two items: ‘shouts at other children’ and ‘argues a lot with other children’. For each behavioral descriptor, students used a class roster to nominate three students in their class whose behavior most fit the descriptor. For each participant, a score was obtained by averaging the nomination numbers across all descriptors, divided further by class size, with higher scores representing higher overt aggression. This measure showed good reliability (α = 0.95).

Child impulsivity

Barratt Impulsiveness Scale (BIS-11, Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, 1995) was used to assess adolescent impulsivity. Participants responded to each item (e.g., ‘I make up my mind quickly’), on a scale ranging from 1 = never to 5 = always. The reliability for this measure was satisfactory (α = 0.82). The impulsivity score was computed by averaging the scale items, with higher scores representing higher levels of child impulsivity.

Peer acceptance

A peer nomination procedure was also used to measure children's peer acceptance (Coie, Dodge, & Coppotelli, 1982). Each student used a class roster to nominate three students they like most and three students they like least. Then, a liking score (i.e., like most nomination number) and a disliking score (i.e., like least nomination number) were computed for each child. A child's liking score minus his or her disliking score and further divided by class size was used as the indicator of peer acceptance (Terry & Coie, 1991).

Control variables

Age, gender, and socioeconomic status (SES) were controlled for in this study. In keeping with previous researchers (Xu, Farver, & Zhang, 2009), we used parental education and occupation to create an indicator of SES. Parents' education was coded from 1 = equal to or below junior high school to 4 = graduate education or above. Parents' monthly salary (MS) was coded from 1 = below 2000 yuan to 5 = above 5000 yuan. The mean education level for fathers and mothers were 1.71(SD = 0.71) and 1.52 (SD = 0.66) and the mean monthly salary for fathers and mothers were 1.71 (0.71) and 1.83 (1.02).An SES score was computed by averaging the standardized levels of both parental education and monthly salary.

Procedure

Before questionnaire administration, we obtained approval from the Ethical Committee for Scientific Research in our institution. We also obtained verbal consent to participate in our survey from each student during weekly class meetings and from their parents via texting or phone calls. With the help of class teachers, trained graduate students explained issues on questionnaire completion following standardized instruction in class. Questionnaires for parents with instructions in envelopes were taken home by students for parental completion and taken back to school where school teachers gathered and mailed us these questionnaires.

Results

Preliminary analyses

Chinese adolescents in this sample seemed to experience relatively low levels of harsh parenting which presented a mean value of 1.25. One study of American adolescents using the similar harsh parenting questionnaire (Simons, Whitbeck, Conger, & Wu, 1991) also demonstrated the mean level of harsh parenting to be below the value of 2. One recent study with Chinese adolescents also provided a mean value of harsh parenting below the value of 2 (Wang et al., 2018). Although Chinese adolescents in this study experienced a relatively low level of harsh parenting, it did exert a detrimental influence on their academic functioning.

As indicated in Table 1, both harsh parenting and impulsivity were negatively correlated with peer acceptance (r = −0.23, p < 0.001; r = −0.08, p < 0.05) and positively correlated with overt aggression (r = 0.21, p < 0.01; r = 0.10, p < 0.01). Overt aggression was negatively associated with peer acceptance (r = −0.66, p < 0.001). The relations among these variables provided preliminary support for our hypotheses.
Table 1.
Means, Standard Deviations and correlations for the variables.

Variables M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6

1. Gender 0.42 0.49 —

2. Age 12.56 0.89 — —

3. SES 2.22 1.11 — . — —

4. Child impulsivity 2.54 0.74 0.002 0.06 −0.03 —

5. Harsh parenting 1.25 0.44 −0.06 −0.02 −0.02 0.20* —

6. Overt aggression 0.03 0.05 −0.24* −0.06 −0.06 0.10 0.21* —

7. Peer acceptance 0.003 0.07 0.15* −0.10 0.03 −0.08* −0.23* −0.66*

Notes: N = 824.

p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

Testing for moderated mediation

The approach by Muller, Judd and Yzerbyt (2005) was used to test our hypotheses. Specifically, the parameters for three regression models were estimated serially. In Model 1, the moderating effect of impulsivity on the association between harsh parenting and child peer acceptance was estimated. In Model 2, the moderating effect of impulsivity on the relationship between harsh parenting and child overt aggression was estimated. In Model 3, the moderating effect of impulsivity on both the partial effect of child overt aggression on peer acceptance and the residual effect of harsh parenting on child peer acceptance was estimated. The specification details of these models were presented in Table 2. All predictors were standardized first to minimize multicollinearity (Dearing & Hamilton, 2006). Moreover, bootstrapping was executed to reduce the influence of variable distributions and to obtain robust parametric estimations.
Table 2.
Testing the moderated mediation effect of harsh parenting on peer acceptance.

Predictors Model 1 (criterion PA)
Model 2 (criterion OAG)
Model 3 (criterion PA)

B t B t B t

CO:gender 0.13 3.74* −0.25 −7.49* −0.03 −1.27

CO:age −0.08 −2.49* −0.09 −2.61** −0.14 −5.42

CO:SES 0.05 1.34 −0.07 −2.09* −0.00 −0.06

X:harsh parenting −0.19 −5.49* 0.15 4.18* −0.10 −3.66***

MO:impulsivity (IMP) −0.05 −1.36 0.09 2.58* 0.01 0.37

XMO:harsh parenting×IMP −0.08 −2.36* 0.11 3.29 −0.01 −0.50

ME:Overt Aggression (OAG) −0.66 −23.01*

MEMO:OAG×IMP 0.03 1.11

R ² 0.09 0.12 0.46

F 12.89* 19.17* 86.80***

Notes: N = 824.

Each column represents a regression model that predicts the criterion at the top of the column. Gender coded as 0 = boy and 1 = girl. CO, X, MO, and ME successively represent control variable, independent variable, moderator, and mediator. XMO and MEMO represent the interaction between independent variable and moderator and that between mediator and moderator, respectively.

IMP = impulsivity; OAG = overt aggression; PA = peer acceptance; SES = socioeconomic status.

p < 0.05; p < 0.01; p < 0.001.

According to the criteria proposed by Edwards and Lambert (2007), moderated mediation would exist if either or both of two moderating patterns appeared: (i) the path from harsh parenting to child overt aggression was moderated by child impulsivity, and/or (ii) the path from child overt aggression to peer acceptance was moderated by child impulsivity.

As shown in Table 2, the first model presented an overall effect of harsh parenting on peer acceptance (β = –0.19, p < 0.001). This overall effect was moderated by child impulsivity (β = –0.08, p < 0.05). For descriptive purposes, we plotted the predicted peer acceptance against harsh parenting, separately for low and high levels of child impulsivity (i.e., 1 SD below the mean and 1 SD above the mean, respectively) (Figure 2). Simple slope test (Dearing & Hamilton, 2006) revealed that, for adolescents with high impulsivity, higher harsh parenting was associated with lower peer acceptance (b_simpe = –0.28, p < 0.001). However, for adolescents with low impulsivity, the effect of harsh parenting on peer acceptance was not significant (b_simple = –0.11, p = 0.06). In Model 2, there was a significant main effect of harsh parenting (β = 0.15, p < 0.001) and a significant harsh parenting × child impulsivity interaction effect on children's overt aggression (β = 0.11, p < 0.01). For the convenience of description, we plotted the predicted child overt aggression against harsh parenting, separately for low and high levels of child impulsivity (1 SD below the mean and 1 SD above the mean, respectively) (Figure 3). Simple slope test results indicated that, for adolescents with high impulsivity, harsh parenting was positively associated with child overt aggression (b_simple = 0.26, p < 0.001). However, for adolescents with low impulsivity, this effect was not significant (b_simple = 0.03, p = 0.63). In the third model, there existed a negative effect of child overt aggression on peer acceptance (β = –0.66, p < 0.001).
Figure 2.
The harsh parenting × adolescent impulsivity interactive effects in relation to early adolescents' aggression.

Figure 3.
The harsh parenting × adolescent impulsivity interactive effects in relation to early adolescents' peer acceptance.

Overall, harsh parenting could be indirectly associated with low peer acceptance via the indirect role of child overt aggression and this indirect association was moderated by child impulsivity. For adolescents with high impulsivity, harsh parenting had compromising effect on their peer acceptance (Z = −3.08, p < 0.01). In contrast, this same indirect effect did not reach significance for adolescents with low impulsivity (Z = −0.44, p > 0.5). The above results supported the first and the second hypotheses.

Discussion

Following prior research on family-peer linkages (Parke & Ladd, 1992), we examined how the complex interplay of harsh parenting and child impulsivity was associated with adolescent overt aggression, which was further associated with adolescents' peer acceptance. Findings indicated that the negative association between harsh parenting and adolescents' peer acceptance could be explained by the indirect role of child overt aggression. Moreover, the indirect effect of harsh parenting on children's peer acceptance via child overt aggression was much stronger for adolescents with higher impulsivity.

In agreement with our first hypothesis, adolescent overt aggression was found to be an important indirect linkage between harsh parenting and lower peer acceptance. When Chinese early adolescents have been harshly treated by parents, they are more likely to demonstrate overt aggression in peer settings, increasing the likelihood of peer rejection. These findings could be explained by social learning theory and social information processing model (Burgess, Wojslawowicz, Rubin, Rose-Krasnor, & Booth-LaForce, 2006). Adolescents exposed to harsh parenting have less chance to learn effective social skills such as emotional control or conflict coping strategies. To the contrary, harsh parenting may train children in using maladaptive emotional regulation strategies such as solving problems with angry responses (Brody et al., 2014). Thus, children who have been harshly parented may be more likely to achieve their goals through aggression in peer settings. In addition, harsh parenting might bias children's social information processing. Children who have experienced much negative parenting tend to display overattention to angry facial expressions (Gulley, Oppenheimer, & Hankin, 2014). Dysfunctional social information processing styles, such as less attention to relevant social cues and hostile attributional biases have been found to mediate the relation between harsh parental discipline and child aggression (Weiss, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 1992). Our study also provided direct support for social learning theory in that adolescents harshly reared by parents at home tend to demonstrate more overt aggression, which is associated with reduced peer acceptance.

Analyses of the moderating role of child impulsivity were more informative. Child impulsivity moderated the overall relation between harsh parenting and adolescents' peer acceptance. Specifically, harsh parenting was only associated with lower peer acceptance for adolescents with higher impulsivity. Moreover, impulsivity also moderated the path from harsh parenting to adolescent overt aggression, with the relation between harsh parenting and overt aggression being stronger for adolescents with higher impulsivity. These findings clarified in greater detail the relationship of negative parenting to children's peer functioning by examining the moderating role of child impulsivity.

Previous research indicated that harsh parenting (Chang, Schwartz, Dodge, & McBride-Chang, 2003) and child impulsivity (Sharma et al., 2014) were both risk factors for children's aggressive behaviors. In view of our findings, by considering the interactional effect of harsh parenting and children's impulsivity, we could in greater detail describe the relation of harsh parenting or child impulsivity to child overtly aggressive behaviors. In other words, only when harsh parenting adds fuel to the flames of high impulsivity in adolescents, harsh parenting may be linked with lower peer acceptance through child overt aggression. These findings also support the person-environment interaction model (Sroufe & Egeland, 1991) in that adolescents with different levels of impulsivity differed greatly in their vulnerability to overt aggression in the context of harsh parenting practices.

The current study offered more insights into the mechanisms by which harsh parenting could be negatively associated with adolescents' peer relationships, at least in a Chinese cultural context. However, limitations should be mentioned in interpreting the results. First, the cross-sectional design prevents us from making causal inferences about the relationships among variables. Second, we used only four items to measure harsh parenting. Future researchers could use a harsh parenting questionnaire with more items to enhance measurement validity. Moreover, harsh parenting was only reported by parents who may underreport such aversive behaviors toward children. Thus, future studies could ask both parents and children to report on parenting variables. Third, external validity within and across societies is always a great concern (Bukowski & Sippola, 1998). Obviously, our research sample could not represent the overall population of early adolescents in China. Intra-cultural variability in beliefs and customs across geographical regions and economic status would engender great diversity in parenting practices and their effects on adolescents' aggression and peer relations.

This study not only deepened our understanding of the mechanisms through which harsh parenting could be linked with lower peer acceptance, but also suggests implications for prevention and intervention efforts to reduce adolescent overt aggression. With guidance from school psychologists, teachers could meet and communicate with parents whose children demonstrate higher levels of aggressive behaviors and lower peer acceptance. School psychologists could provide consultation to parents about parenting tactics that may be linked to reduced child aggression and peer difficulties. School psychologists could also provide workshops or lectures to enhance parenting skills and children's school adaptation. Parents could learn from such meetings that physical discipline and verbal harshness are ineffective and even detrimental in managing children with low self-control. They could be trained on effective parenting skills such as reasoning and induction and learn how to adapt their parenting tactics to individual differences in child temperamental characteristics such as impulsivity. Finally, although we did not find the indirect effect of harsh parenting on overt aggression of adolescents with lower impulsivity, the direct effect still exists, reminding parents consciously against these ineffective parenting strategies.

Variables	M	SD	1	2	3	4	5	6
1. Gender	0.42	0.49	—
2. Age	12.56	0.89	—	—
3. SES	2.22	1.11	—	. —	—
4. Child impulsivity	2.54	0.74	0.002	0.06	−0.03	—
5. Harsh parenting	1.25	0.44	−0.06	−0.02	−0.02	0.20***	—
6. Overt aggression	0.03	0.05	−0.24***	−0.06	−0.06	0.10**	0.21***	—
7. Peer acceptance	0.003	0.07	0.15***	−0.10**	0.03	−0.08*	−0.23***	−0.66***

Predictors	Model 1 (criterion PA)	Model 2 (criterion OAG)	Model 3 (criterion PA)
CO:gender	0.13	3.74***	−0.25	−7.49***	−0.03	−1.27
CO:age	−0.08	−2.49*	−0.09	−2.61**	−0.14	−5.42
CO:SES	0.05	1.34	−0.07	−2.09*	−0.00	−0.06
X:harsh parenting	−0.19	−5.49***	0.15	4.18***	−0.10	−3.66***
MO:impulsivity (IMP)	−0.05	−1.36	0.09	2.58*	0.01	0.37
XMO:harsh parenting×IMP	−0.08	−2.36*	0.11	3.29**	−0.01	−0.50
ME:Overt Aggression (OAG)					−0.66	−23.01***
MEMO:OAG×IMP					0.03	1.11
R ²	0.09	0.12	0.46
F	12.89***	19.17***	86.80***

Footnotes

Acknowledgements

This work was supported by National Education Scientific Planning (General Project) titled as “Empirical Research on the Detrimental Impact of Harsh Parenting on Children and Adolescents’ School Adaptation” (Project Number: BBA170238).

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Mingzhong Wang is a Psychological Professor in the School of Education at Qufu Normal University. His research interests focus on how aversive parenting tactics affect children’s school adaptation, moral development, and compulsive Internet use.

Jing Wang is a Psychological Researcher in the School of Education at Qufu Normal University. Her research interests focus on how interpersonal rejection and moral development affect children’s prosocial behavior.

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