Exposure to Family Violence and Adolescent Antisocial Behavior: Exploring the Differential Onset and Growth Rates of...

Adolescent externalizing symptoms, including aggression, impulsivity, and rule-breaking, are prevalent and often co-occur. Etiologically, developmental scientists have utilized developmental models to explain the link between exposure to family violence and adolescent externalizing symptoms; however, few studies have tested the longitudinal underlying role of impulsivity on the association between exposure to family violence and adolescent antisocial behavior.

Thus, this study synthesized three theoretical frameworks, including the developmental cascading framework, emotional insecurity model, and intergenerational transmission of violence, in estimating the predictive effects of exposure to family violence on aggression and rule-breaking behavior, respectively, and the mediating role of impulsivity on the developmental link between exposure to family violence and aggression and rule-breaking behavior, respectively, across four time points (n = 1543).

Direct effects results indicated that exposure to family violence did not statistically predict the onset and growth rates of aggression; however, exposure to family violence positively predicted the onset of rule-breaking behavior, but not the growth rate. Mediation results indicated that baseline impulsivity mediated the indirect effect of family violence on baseline aggression; however, the same mediation effect was not found for the growth rate of aggression. Importantly, family violence, mediated by the growth rate of impulsivity, had a negative indirect effect on the growth rate of aggression. Furthermore, family violence was linked to baseline rule-breaking behavior through baseline impulsivity; however, baseline impulsivity did not significantly mediate the relationship between family violence and the growth rate of rule-breaking. As with aggression, the growth rate of impulsivity mediated the association between family violence and the growth rate of rule-breaking behavior, with a negative indirect effect, indicating that greater family violence exposure was associated with slower declines in impulsivity and, in turn, slower declines in rule-breaking behavior.

Overall, these results partially supported the developmental cascading and the intergenerational transmission of violence perspectives by highlighting the relative effects of exposure to family violence on baseline rule-breaking and the longitudinal mediational effect of impulsivity on the relationship between adolescents' exposure to family violence and both aggression and rule-breaking behavior over time.