Intergenerational Effect of Parental Childhood Maltreatment on Chinese Preschool Children’s Aggressive Behavior

ABSTRACT

Based on the conservation of resources theory and social learning theory, this study looked into the impact of parental childhood maltreatment (CM) history on their children’s aggressive behavior (CAGG) by examining the sequential mediation effect of parental psychological capital (PPC) and harsh parenting (HP). A total of 471 Chinese parents with preschool children reported on CM, psychological capital, and harsh parenting. Besides, children’s aggression was reported by their mothers. The results illustrated that parental CM is related to children’s aggressive behavior through the sequential mediation of psychological capital and harsh parenting. Interventions that reduce harsh parenting and increase parental psychological capital may prevent deleterious effects of parental childhood maltreatment history on child aggressive behavior.

KEYWORDS:

• Childhood maltreatment
• aggressive behavior
• psychological capital
• harsh parenting
• conservation of resources theory
• social learning theory

Acknowledgments

Special thanks to Lijun Yang for her help in collecting data.

Ethical Standards and Informed Consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation [institutional and national] and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.