Influence of marital conflict on young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea: The mediating role of child maltreatment

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Abstract

This study examines the relationship between marital conflict, child maltreatment, and young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea. Of particular interest is whether child maltreatment mediated the pathway between marital conflict and children's aggression. The participants consist of 349 mothers with 3-year-old children attending 20 daycare centers in Seoul. The mothers completed a questionnaire, which was composed of marital conflict, mothers' maltreatment, and children's aggression. Structural equation modeling was used to examine the mediating roles of mothers' maltreatment in the relationship between marital conflict and children's aggressive behavior. Results suggest that the effect of marital conflict on children's aggressive behavior was fully mediated by mothers' maltreatment. This model was invariant across both boys and girls. Findings from this study have major implications for research, practice, and policy regarding family violence and young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea.

Highlights

► We examined young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea. ► Sample included 349 mothers with 3-year-old children in 20 daycare centers. ► Marital conflict on children's aggression was mediated by maltreatment.

Introduction

For the past several decades, childhood aggression has been one of the most widely studied topics in child development. Longitudinal investigations have demonstrated that aggression is an important risk factor for future social, emotional, and psychological problems (Crick et al., 2006, Mathieson and Crick, 2010). As a result, a bulk of research has been dedicated to understanding factors associated with the development of aggressive behavior in children. Studies inspired by social learning theory (Bandura, 1973) emphasize social–environmental influences on the onset and development of aggressive behavior in children. Among possible social–environmental influences, family conflicts including marital conflict and child maltreatment have received considerable attention. Studies have reported that family conflicts are major predictors of children's aggression.

Marital conflict has been found to be associated with a wide range of children's adjustment problems (Buehler and Gerard, 2002, Grych et al., 2000, Hetherington et al., 1998). Children who are frequently exposed to marital conflict between parents are at heightened risk of adjustment and behavioral problems (Becker and McCloskey, 2002, McDonald et al., 2009, Roode et al., 2009). Research on children's aggression has also provided significant support for the correlation between children's aggressive behavior and lack of family cohesion (Gorman-Smith, Tolan, Zelli, & Huesmann, 1996) and inter-parental violence (Baldry, 2003). These findings are in line with Bandura's (1973) social learning theory, which proposed that children, particularly girls who witnessed their mother being abused by her spouse or intimate-partner might learn that aggression and violence are appropriate responses to interpersonal conflict (Baldry, 2003, Bauer et al., 2006). These findings also support Widom's (1989) proposition that exposure to conflict at home is antecedent to the development of aggressive and antisocial behavior in children (Jaffe, Wolfe, & Wilson, 1990).

Negative parenting practices are significant risk factors contributing to the development of children's aggressive behavior. Cullerton-Sen et al. (2008) argued that maltreatment may adversely affect children's internal working models (i.e., the perception of themselves as worthy and competent and of others as caring and responsive) and their emotional regulation abilities. These children may internalize feelings of hostility, fear, and rejection, which can contribute to difficulties in regulating anger and frustrations (Shields & Cicchetti, 2001). As a result, they are at increased risk of developing an angry and hyper-vigilant style of interpersonal interactions outside the home (Dodge, 1991). In fact, a number of studies have shown that both harsh parenting (Herrenkohl et al., 1997, Shields and Cicchetti, 1998, Strassberg et al., 1994) and lack of parental involvement (Knutson, Degarmo, & Reid, 2004) could put children at higher risk of developing aggressive behavior. In a study directly testing the pathway from child maltreatment to aggression, Manly, Kim, Rogosch, and Cicchetti (2001) found that maltreated children were more aggressive than non-maltreated children.

The association between marital conflict and negative parenting has been also well documented (Casaneuva et al., 2009, Edelson, 2004, Kelleher et al., 2008). Mothers who frequently experience marital conflict or violence are more likely to maltreat their children (Mohr and Tulman, 2000, Osofsky, 2003, Shin, 2001, Taylor et al., 2009), as they are also more likely to experience mental and emotional health problems, which compromise their parenting practices (Belsky & Vondra, 1987). The parenting style of these mothers is normally characterized as coercive and restrictive (Park & Koh, 2004), as they tend to exhibit physically abusive (Hart et al., 1998) and neglectful (Youn et al., 2005) parenting behaviors. A meta-analytic study conducted by Erel and Burman (1995) also reports that marital conflict between parents was significantly and negatively linked to the quality of parenting.

Although the pathway from marital conflict to harsh and neglectful parenting, and subsequently to aggression has been established, little research has examined the role of parenting in the association between marital conflict and child aggression. Despite the significance of research findings and theoretical support linking marital conflict and young children's aggression, it is unlikely that children who experience marital conflict at home immediately display aggressive behavioral tendencies (Moffitt & Caspi, 2001). Instead, violence emerges in some children through complex pathways where the child's risk for aggressive behavior occurs. This raises a hypothesis that parenting styles associated with martial conflict might account for the link between marital conflict and child aggression. Considering that different types of family conflict might co-occur in the same family, and the presence of one type of family conflict can be a strong predictor of the other (Tomison, 2000), we examine mothers' maltreatment (including physical and emotional abuse, and neglect) as a potential mediator that explains the association between marital conflict and child aggression, which can vary depending on the gender of the child.

In addition, this hypothesized relationship was tested in a sample of South Korean mothers with young children. Research on aggressive and problem behaviors of young children is relatively recent in South Korea (Jung, 2005, Kim et al., 2011, Park and Doh, 2006, Park and Lee, 2002), and few studies have examined the association between family conflict (i.e., marital conflict between parents and maltreatment) and young children's aggressive behavior. Existing findings reveal that children exposed to inter-parental conflict (Kim, 2007, Kim et al., 2011, Yim, 2004) and abused at home (Kim, 2006, Kim et al., 2011, Park, 2000) are at risk of exhibiting aggressive behavior. A limited number of researchers in South Korea have also found significant support for the association between marital conflict between parents and maltreatment (Park and Koh, 2004, Youn et al., 2005). We expect that findings from a South Korean sample will add more insight to the pathways between marital conflict and aggression via mothers' maltreatment.

Section snippets

Study design and sample

We conducted a cross-sectional study on the association between marital conflict and young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea. Considering the importance of developing primary prevention and intervention strategies for aggressive behavior, young children were selected for this study. Of the 421 surveys, 359 were completed and returned. Exclusionary criteria included incomplete surveys and children who either did not reside with their mothers, and children who were not three years of

Preliminary analyses

Socio-demographic characteristics of the children and parents are presented in Table 1, and means, standard deviations, and correlations for the variables are included in Table 2. With regards to child characteristics, slightly over a majority of the sample were boys (52.7%) and first-born (62.2%). In terms of the characteristics of parents, the majority of the fathers were 35–39 years of age (52.1%), followed by 30–34 (25.5%). For mothers, 45.2% were 35–39 years of age, followed by 30–34

Discussion

The majority of research studies on children's aggressive behavior and its correlates have been conducted with elementary school-age children and adolescents, and relatively few studies have examined aggressive behaviors of young children. Given this major dearth of research on young children, the present study examined the relationship between marital conflict, child maltreatment, and young children's aggressive behavior in South Korea. This study focused specifically on the pathways between

Conclusion

In conclusion, our study found that the path between marital conflict and young children's aggressive behavior is fully mediated by child maltreatment. Despite the promising outcomes of family intervention programs as reported by several studies, there is a major dearth of prevention and intervention programs for aggressive young children that consider the family ecology in South Korea. Thus, it is imperative that researchers and practitioners consider family environment variables, such as

Acknowledgement

This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea Grant funded by the Korean Government (NRF-2010-330-C00001). Jun Sung Hong was not involved in the empirical part of the research.

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