Socio-cognitive variables involved in the relationship between violence exposure at home and child-to-parent violence

The aim of the current cross-sectional study was to examine the role of social-cognitive processing in the relation between violence exposure at home and child-to-parent violence.

The study included 1,624 adolescents (54.9% girls) aged between 12 and 18 years (M_age = 14.7, SD = 1.7 years) from Jaén and Oviedo (Spain) who completed a set of questionnaires about violence exposure, child-to-parent violence and social-cognitive processing.

The data revealed that exposure to violence at home is related to dysfunctional components of social-cognitive processing, and that whereas some of these components (anger and aggressive response access) are positively related to child-to-parent violence motivated by reactive reasons, other components (anticipation of positive consequences and justification of violence) are positively related to the instrumental use of the aggression against parents.

More prevention work is needed with children exposed to violence at home to reduce the risk of intergenerational transmission of violence. Moreover, treatment programs should include intervention on the way in which adolescents process the information in their interactions with parents. These interventions must be focused on different components of social-cognitive processing, depending on whether these aggressive behaviors are motivated by reactive or instrumental reasons.