Perception of parental behaviour and different aspects of aggressive behaviour among elementary school children

The importance of the family and the parent-child relationship, as the agents of socialization, has been proven by numerous studies. While there is ample empirical evidence of parental influence on the development of child physical and verbal aggressiveness, there is relatively little data on the relations between family processes and child indirect aggressiveness. This study aimed to assess the predictability of various dimensions of parental behaviour in explaining various forms of child aggressiveness. The study was conducted on a sample of 115 pupils attending fifth to eighth grade of an elementary school in Zagreb. The perception of parental behaviour was examined through a questionnaire designed to assess parental behaviour (CRPB1-57), the version of the questionnaire where children assess the behaviour of their mother and father towards themselves. Aggressive behaviour was examined via a scale for peer assessment and self-assessment of aggressiveness. For further analyses, peer assessment of aggressiveness was used alongside the self-assessment of direct and indirect aggressiveness. The results confirmed a significant contribution of parental behaviour variables it? explaining the variance in child aggressiveness (self-assessment of aggressiveness). Along with children age and gender, these variables explain 32% variance of direct aggressiveness, and 24% of indirect aggressiveness. Independent additive contributions of parental behaviour to criterion variances are 16% and 19.4% for the measures of direct and indirect aggressiveness, respectively.