The Violence Cycle

We all know that parents should not argue in front of their children in order to provide them with a non-aggressive, non-violent environment. But why is that crucial for the child’s development ? Well, decades of  studies showed that children who grow up in aggressive or violent environments are more likely to become violent or aggressive in future relationships. But researchers were unable to establish the link between witnessing aggressive behavior as a child and taking that experience into practice as an adult.

Researchers from Indiana University’s Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences think that it’s all in the way children process this information. It seems that children that have experienced or witnessed violence as a child process social information differently than those who grow up in “healthier” environments

“Children with high-conflict parents are more likely to think that aggressive responses would be good ways to handle social conflicts,” said John Bates, a professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences and a co-author of the study. “

Researchers also believe that this study can partially explain why these children are more likely to deal with conflict in their romantic relationships later on in their development. It’s a cycle : children that grew up in an aggressive or violent household become the parents that give the same bad experience to their own children. But another co-author of this study- Amy Holtzworth-Munroe, professor of psychology in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences- believes that this research can also provide crucial experience towards preventing and treating this problem.“For example, treatments for male batterers may want to address a person’s ability to evaluate his responses to certain social situations,” said Holtzworth-Munroe.

Bates also states that this study takes just one step towards preventing aggressive behavior. “This is probably not the only factor mediating this association. We want to know how these processes work alongside other factors, such as emotional regulation, social skills or genetic processes,” he said.

Bates began collecting data for this study in 1987. Parents and children were recruited from Nashville and Knoxville, Tenn., and Bloomington, Ind. When the children were five, they and their parents were interviewed. At ages 13 and 16, the adolescent offspring were presented with hypothetical social situations and asked to express their perceptions and reactions to the events as well as predict what they would have done in the situation. From ages 18-21, the offspring reported on the amount of aggressive behavior in their romantic relationships. Researchers continue to follow participants and plan on using this data set for future studies.

The study, “Social Information Processing Mediates the Intergenerational Transmission of Aggressiveness in Romantic Relationships,” appears in the June issue of the Journal of Family Psychology. Co-authors are lead author Jennifer Fite, Indiana University; Kenneth Dodge and Sandra Nay, Duke University; and Gregory Pettit, Auburn University.