ARTÍCULO
TITULO

Harsh Parenting and Children?s Aggressive Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model

Bowen Liu    
Yuhua Yang    
Jie Geng    
Tingting Cai    
Mengjuan Zhu    
Tao Chen and Jinjing Xiang    

Resumen

Harsh parenting and its effect on children?s aggressive behavior has received attention from researchers, however few studies have considered the role of the emotional process. This study aims to examine the relationship between harsh parenting, children?s aggressive behavior, normative beliefs about aggression, and regulatory emotional self-efficacy, alongside their mechanism of interplay. A sample of 235 senior primary school students in Beijing were recruited as participants by using the Harsh Parenting Scale, the Normative Beliefs about Aggression Scale, the Buss?Warren Aggression Questionnaire, and the Regulatory Emotional Self-Efficacy Scale. Results indicated that: (1) Harsh parenting had a significant positive predictive effect on children?s aggressive behavior after controlling gender; (2) normative beliefs about the aggression of children mediated the relationship between harsh parenting and children?s aggressive behavior; and (3) regulatory emotional self-efficacy had moderating effects both the mediation model of normative beliefs about the aggression of children and in the direct predictive model of harsh parenting on children?s aggressive behavior. The results are not only helpful to understand the relationship between harsh parenting and children?s aggressive behavior from the perspective of an integrated model of emotion processes and cognition, but also provide a new practical way to prevent and intervene in children?s aggressive behavior in the future.