College-aged individuals experience verbal and physical dating aggression at high rates, which is troubling given the associated deleterious consequences. Verbal and physical aggression are highly correlated, with verbal aggression often serving as a precursor to physical aggression. The current studies examined factors that may influence the likelihood and escalation of dating aggression in response to a dating conflict scenario, including alcohol intoxication, self-regulation, and trait aggressivity. Study 1 assessed the construct validity of a newly developed audio-taped scenario of mutual aggression as well as a hot sauce task. Men and women with (n=31) and without (n=30) a history of past-year dating aggression provided responses to the conflict scenario using the Articulated Thoughts in Simulated Situations (ATSS) procedure. Under the guise of an assessment of sensitivity, participants allocated hot sauce for a fictitious participant to consume. Results supported the construct validity of the conflict scenario but not the hot sauce task, which was therefore not included in Study 2. Study 2 examined the influence of alcohol's pharmacological and expectancy effects as well as one’s ability to self-regulate thoughts, feelings, and behavior on aggression intentions in response to the mutual aggression conflict scenario. Participants were randomized to either receive alcohol (n=48; blood alcohol content M = .082%), placebo (n=48), or no alcohol (n=48). Using ATSS procedures identical to Study 1, intoxicated individuals articulated more verbal aggression intentions overall and exhibited a greater increase across the conflict scenario than those who did not receive alcohol, but did not differ from those who received placebo. There were no effects of alcohol on physical aggression intentions. Individuals who received placebo and who were poorer at suppressing emotions articulated more verbal aggression intentions than intoxicated individuals. Additionally, individuals higher in trait aggressivity articulated more physical aggression intentions and intoxicated individuals with lower relationship satisfaction articulated more verbal aggression intentions. Results suggest that both the pharmacological and expectancy effects of alcohol were important to the occurrence of aggression. Whereas higher trait aggressivity and lower relationship satisfaction may be risk  factors  for  aggression,  regulating  one’s  emotions  may  reduce  the frequency of aggression. / text

High prevalence and the negative legal, health, and psychological consequences of adolescent dating aggression underscore the need to identify risk and protective processes associated with this type of aggression. Studying dating aggression in early adolescence is important, as this is the developmental time frame when most youth are establishing attitudes, beliefs, and norms for dating behaviors. The current study investigated longitudinal associations between perceived parental and peer support for violent and nonviolent responses to conflict and dating aggression perpetration among middle school students. Participants included 1,399 adolescents (52% female) in the sixth (n = 466), seventh (n = 467), and eighth (n = 466) grades. Results showed that peer support for nonviolent responses predicted lower frequencies of subsequent dating aggression among sixth graders, and perceived parental support for nonviolent responses resulted in decreased frequencies of dating aggression in the seventh and eighth grades. Peer support for violent responses predicted increased dating aggression in the seventh grade, and perceived parental support for violent responses led to higher frequencies of dating aggression in the eighth grade. Additionally, dating aggression predicted changes in adolescent perceptions of parental and peer support for violent and nonviolent responses. No sex differences were found in these models. Lastly, moderation analyses identified two significant interactions. These interactions illustrated that different combinations of parental and peer support for violent and nonviolent responses affected dating aggression perpetration, highlighting the importance of examining mixed messages and combinations of messages from parents and peers. Overall, the findings from the current study indicated that adolescent perceptions of parental and peer support for violent and nonviolent responses to conflict are important risk and protective processes, respectively, that are longitudinally associated with dating aggression. These findings can inform dating violence prevention programs, and stress the importance of adolescent, parental, and peer involvement in these programs.

This study examined autonomy and relatedness in mother adolescent interactions as longitudinal predictors of adolescent involvement in dating aggression. Research indicates that dating aggression, defined as perpetration and/or victimization of physical, psychological, or sexual aggression, affects one-third to two-thirds of adolescents. Most studies of adolescent dating aggression have been cross-sectional, have lacked a developmental theoretical perspective, and have not adequately investigated contextual differences in dating aggression. This study adds to the existing literature in that it applies a developmental framework to a multi-method, longitudinal study (n=88) of adolescent dating aggression. Adolescents’ and their mothers’ demonstrations of support for and inhibition of autonomy and relatedness during a coded interaction task observed when adolescents were 16 years old were examined as predictors of adolescents’ reports of perpetration and victimization of physical and psychological aggression two years later, exploring gender, race/ethnicity, and environmental risk as moderators. It was expected that promotion of autonomy and relatedness would be negatively related to adolescent reports of involvement in dating aggression, whereas inhibition of autonomy and relatedness would be positively related to adolescent reports of dating aggression. Hierarchical multiple regressions revealed that, as expected, maternal inhibition of relatedness predicted slight increases in reports of psychological perpetration and victimization. However, maternal support for autonomy was related to increases in perpetration of psychological aggression for all adolescents and increases in perpetration and victimization of physical aggression for girls, but not boys. Adolescent support for autonomy was related to increases in perpetration of physical aggression only for environmentally at-risk teens and to increases in psychological perpetration for racial/ethnic minority participants, but not for Caucasians. It was also found that girls reported more physical and psychological perpetration than boys, and that racial/ethnic minority participants reported more physical perpetration than Caucasians. Results indicate that autonomy is a dynamic developmental process that operates differently as a function of the various ecological contexts in which adolescents live, as marked by gender, race/ethnicity, and risk, in predicting adolescent involvement in dating aggression.

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