TY - JOUR
T1 - Associations Between Parental Psychological Control and Relational Aggression in Children and Adolescents: A Multilevel and Sequential Meta-Analysis
AU - Kuppens, S.P.E.
AU - Laurent, L.
AU - Heyvaert, M.
AU - Onghena, P.
PY - 2013
Y1 - 2013
N2 - Youth aggression has been associated with negative parenting practices, but previous research about this association has mainly focused on physical and verbal aggression. Because more subtle forms of aggression are considered at least as harmful as their physical and verbal counterparts, there is a growing scientific interest in parenting practices that are linked with relational aggression. Guided by social learning theory, a link between youth relational aggression and parental psychological control has been postulated, but the empirical evidence is inconsistent. The present meta-analysis provides a multilevel and sequential quantitative synthesis of 165 dependent effect sizes (23 studies) encompassing 8,958 youths. Across studies, a positive, albeit weak, association between parental psychological control and relational aggression was found. The sequential analysis demonstrated that sufficient cumulative knowledge was attained to yield convincing evidence on this overall association. Moderator analyses revealed that developmental period and assessment method were associated with differences in research findings. Overall, however, results suggest that clarifying the precise role of psychological control in the development and maintenance of relational aggression requires more targeted primary research, which in turn would allow additional and more complex synthesis efforts with potentially more nuanced conclusions. © 2012 American Psychological Association.
AB - Youth aggression has been associated with negative parenting practices, but previous research about this association has mainly focused on physical and verbal aggression. Because more subtle forms of aggression are considered at least as harmful as their physical and verbal counterparts, there is a growing scientific interest in parenting practices that are linked with relational aggression. Guided by social learning theory, a link between youth relational aggression and parental psychological control has been postulated, but the empirical evidence is inconsistent. The present meta-analysis provides a multilevel and sequential quantitative synthesis of 165 dependent effect sizes (23 studies) encompassing 8,958 youths. Across studies, a positive, albeit weak, association between parental psychological control and relational aggression was found. The sequential analysis demonstrated that sufficient cumulative knowledge was attained to yield convincing evidence on this overall association. Moderator analyses revealed that developmental period and assessment method were associated with differences in research findings. Overall, however, results suggest that clarifying the precise role of psychological control in the development and maintenance of relational aggression requires more targeted primary research, which in turn would allow additional and more complex synthesis efforts with potentially more nuanced conclusions. © 2012 American Psychological Association.
U2 - 10.1037/a0030740
DO - 10.1037/a0030740
M3 - Article
SN - 0012-1649
VL - 49
SP - 1697
EP - 1712
JO - Developmental Psychology
JF - Developmental Psychology
IS - 9
ER -