Shared longitudinal predictors of physical peer and dating violence

Peers and dates are common targets of adolescent violence. Prevention programs typically address either peer violence (PV) or dating violence (DV) but not both. However, if PV and DV share predictors, prevention strategies could target both behaviors, yielding economic and time efficiencies. Longitudinal data were examined to determine the extent to which physical PV and DV shared predictors. Guided by social learning and social control theories, both risk and protective factors were examined at multiple levels of the social ecology.

Adolescents in the eighth through 10th grades in three North Carolina counties completed self-administered questionnaires in school in the fall 2003 (Wave 1) and again in spring 2004 (Wave 2) (n = 4,227). The sample was 48% male; 55% white, 33% black, and 12% of other race/ethnicity. A generalized estimating equations approach used adjusted standard errors to account for the correlation between the two violence outcomes.

For both boys and girls, anger, family conflict, and having models of deviant behavior in the school were shared risk factors, and holding prosocial beliefs was a shared protective factor. For girls, anxiety and having models of deviant behavior in the neighborhood were additional shared risk factors. For boys, heavy alcohol use was an additional shared risk factor and parental monitoring was an additional shared protective factor.

Findings can inform the development of comprehensive cross-cutting prevention strategies at multiple levels of the social ecology designed to prevent both types of violence.