Reciprocal Relations between Parent - Child Perceived Psychological Aggression and School-Aged Children's Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: A Within-Person Analysis

Zhao Xinyu; Hu Xia; Chen Ye; Xing Xiaopei

doi:10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240510

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Journal of Psychological Science ›› 2024, Vol. 47 ›› Issue (5) : 1113-1124. DOI: 10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240510

Reciprocal Relations between Parent - Child Perceived Psychological Aggression and School-Aged Children's Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: A Within-Person Analysis

Zhao Xinyu, Hu Xia, Chen Ye, Xing Xiaopei

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Abstract

Understanding the relations between negative parenting and children's internalizing and externalizing problems is essential for improving children's mental health. From the middle to late elementary school period, as a form of controlling parenting, parental psychological aggression is likely to become increasingly salient in affecting children's behavioval development due to their heightened needs for pursuing autonomy and independence. The conceptual framework of the parent-child transaction posits that parents and children are reciprocally influenced. According to these theories, parental psychological aggression and children's internalizing and externalizing problems may reflect a reciprocal process of mutual influence. Importantly, the increasing needs of autonomy and advances of cognition allow children to question other's perspectives, which may lead to the divergence of parenting perspectives between parents and children. Especially, parents who grew up with traditional concepts on parenting are likely to view their own controlling parenting practices optimistically. In contrast, growing children are greatly influenced by Western views of parenting that emphasize individuality and autonomy, and they tend to view parental controlling behaviors in a much more negative light. Therefore, it is necessary to consider the differences between parent-child perceived psychological aggression to gain a more accurate understanding of how psychological aggression relates to children's behavioral problems. Moreover, developmental theory is typically concerned with within-person variability, and developmental processes are often assumed to occur within, rather than between, individuals. Between-person variance reflects differences in whether children who experience more parental psychological aggression tend to exhibit more behavioral problems compared to children who experience less. Within-person variance reflects whether changes in parental psychological aggression compared to their mean level at one time point could predict changes in children's behavioral problems compared to their mean level at the next time point, and vice versa. The cross-lagged panel model (CLPM), a traditional method for testing effect directions, fails to separate between-person variance from within-person variance. In this regard, the random intercept cross-lagged panel model (RI-CLPM) can separate the variance of each variable into stable between-person variation and within-person variation. Therefore, the second aim of this study is to use the RI-CLPM to provide a robust test of within-person associations between psychological aggression and behavioral problems. Finally, the third aim of the study is to examine whether the relation between parental psychological aggression and children's internalizing and externalizing problems differs by parent and child gender based on the within-person analysis.
The current study conducted a four-wave (six months apart) longitudinal design based on 534 school-aged children (M_age = 9.84 years; Boys = 49.4%) and their parents. During four waves, parents and children respectively reported parental psychological aggression using the Parent-Child Conflict Tactics Scales, and respectively reported child internalizing and externalizing problems using the Child Behavior Check List and the Youth Self-Report. RI-CLPM and multi-group analyses were used to examine whether the relations between parental psychological aggression and children's internalizing and externalizing problems are reciprocal at the within-person level and whether such within-person relations would vary across parent and child gender, and multi-informant data also allowed us to explore whether the above relations would differ for parent-child-perception.
The results of RI-CLPM showed that at the between-person level, the random intercepts of parental psychological aggression and children's internalizing and externalizing problems were significantly correlated. At the within-person level, for parental perception, only the child-driven effects were found for relations between paternal psychological aggression and externalizing problems, and only the parent-driven effects were found for relations between maternal psychological aggression and externalizing problems. Meanwhile, internalizing problems were reciprocally related with paternal rather than maternal psychological aggression. For children's perception, only the parent-driven effects were found for relations between externalizing problems and paternal and maternal psychological aggression, and internalizing problems were reciprocally related with maternal rather than paternal psychological aggression. Finally, no child gender differences were found in the above relations.
In conclusion, this study indicates that during the middle and late school-aged period, the reciprocal relations between parental psychological aggression and children's internalizing and externalizing problems differ between the between-person and within-person levels. Furthermore, the strength and direction of the within-person relations differ by reporter, types of behavioral problems and parent gender. In addition, the within-person relations between parental psychological aggression and children's behavioral problems do not vary by child gender.

Key words

psychological aggression / behavioral problem / reciprocal effect / discrepant perceptions / within-person

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Zhao Xinyu, Hu Xia, Chen Ye, Xing Xiaopei. Reciprocal Relations between Parent - Child Perceived Psychological Aggression and School-Aged Children's Internalizing and Externalizing Problems: A Within-Person Analysis[J]. Journal of Psychological Science. 2024, 47(5): 1113-1124 https://doi.org/10.16719/j.cnki.1671-6981.20240510

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