ORI GI NAL PAPER

Parental Inuences on the Prevalence and Development of Child

Aggressiveness
Klaus Wahl

Cornelia Metzner
Published online: 13 April 2011
Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2011
Abstract The development of aggressiveness between 5
and 17 years and some parental inuences on this devel-
opment were analyzed using data from Germany. Interna-
tional studies have shown a camel humps curve, i.e., a
peak of aggression of children (primarily boys) between 2
and 4 years and a second peak of antisocial or aggressive
behavior of boys between 15 and 20 years, but small
groups of children and adolescents were persistently
aggressive. A representative longitudinal study (2,190
children and their parents) and an additional study (1,372
children and adolescents) were conducted in Germany. The
hypotheses of this article are that in the data can be found
(a) an U-shaped course of aggressiveness for boys and
girls, but on different levels, (b) a minority of persistently
aggressive children and youth, (c) inuences of parental
temperaments, behavioral tendencies, parenting styles and
the family status on the childrens aggressiveness. The
results replicate roughly the valley of the U-shaped
course of aggressiveness. Small groups of chronically
aggressive children were found as well. Inuences of
parental temperaments and corresponding behavioral ten-
dencies (internalizing and externalizing behavior), parent-
ing styles (child-centered communication, use of violence)
and the social status of the families on child aggressiveness
conrmed the hypotheses. These processes were moderated
by gender effects between mothers, fathers, daughters, and
sons. In regard to the group of persistently aggressive
young people prevention of aggression should start early in
childhood and over the long term. Parent education should
consider more the individual personalities of the parents,
not only parenting styles.
Keywords Aggression Children Adolescents
Parents Longitudinal study Germany
Introduction
During the last decades many societies were alarmed about
the increasing violence of adolescents (Bundeskriminalamt
2009; Krug et al. 2002). For a long time, research on the
causes of aggression and aggressiveness (as the disposition
for aggressive behavior) concentrated on adolescents
because their acts of violence are particularly visible to the
public (e.g., Stattin and Magnusson 1989). But it became
obvious that aggressiveness and certain forms of aggres-
sion arise earlier in life. There is some continuity of general
aggressiveness from childhood to adulthood; studies
determined that most adolescents and adults who commit
acts of violence were already aggressive or socially con-
spicuous as children (Alink et al. 2006; Huesmann et al.
2009; Kokko et al. 2009; Loeber et al. 2005; Tremblay
2000, 2007; Wahl 2002, 2003; Wahl et al. 2001). This is an
important insight for the early prevention of aggression and
for the role of parents in prevention programs.
However, the attempt to summarize research results on
the development of aggression starting in childhood is
confronted with a series of problems. For example, there is
no unied denition of aggression: It is sometimes regar-
ded as deliberate bodily harm done to another; but some-
times the criterion of intention is not included, especially
where children are concerned. Some studies use aggression
K. Wahl (&)
Psychosocial Analyses and Prevention - Information System
(PAPIS), Hollriegelskreuther Str. 1, 81379 Munchen, Germany
e-mail: wahl.muc@gmail.com
C. Metzner
Fasanenhof Clinic, Munchen, Germany
1 3
J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355
DOI 10.1007/s10826-011-9484-x
as a component of externalizing behavior or delinquency.
In this article aggression is regarded as an ensemble of
mechanisms formed during the course of evolution in order
to assert oneself, relatives or friends against others, to gain
or to defend resources (ultimate causes) by harmful dam-
aging means (for example, hitting others). These mecha-
nisms are often motivated by emotions like fear,
frustration, anger, feelings of stress, dominance or pleasure
(proximate causes). Aggression can be considered patho-
logical when it is exaggerated, persistent or expressed out
of context (Nelson and Trainor 2007; Wahl 2009). The
term aggressiveness is used for the individual disposition
for aggression (for example, expressed in a childs desire to
start ghts with others).
The methods of research into aggression are also
diverse, which has effects on the results: Aggressive
behavior is determined by self-reports from children, by
reports from parents, teachers, police, or the researchers
themselves. There are retrospective and prospective stud-
ies. Some studies only consider one gender, which is
usually boys because bodily aggression is more widespread
among them while girls tend more to indirect or relational
aggression (Foster and Hagan 2003), according to the
meta-analysis of 148 studies by Card et al. (2008).
In the last years there was more research on aggression
in young children. In a Dutch longitudinal study, parents
described a peak in the prevalence of physically aggressive
behavior (77%) among their two-year-olds (Alink et al.
2006). Based on international longitudinal studies
(including Nagin and Tremblay 1999), Tremblay (2007)
concludes that a peak of aggressive behavior is reached
between the end of the second and the end of the fourth
year. With regard to the persistently highly aggressive
children in the studies conducted by Tremblay, there was
no group of boys in which physical aggression rst started
after the age of six and was maintained thereafter. The
National Longitudinal Survey of Children and Youth
(NLSCY) produced current results for 12,292 Canadian
children between the ages of 5 and 11 years. While 3.7% of
the boys remained frequently physically aggressive
throughout this age range, this number dropped from 2.3 to
0.5% for girls (Lee et al. 2007). In a representative sample
of the German Child and Adolescent Health Survey with
2,863 families with children between the ages of 7 and
17 years, 67% of these children and adolescents were
aggressive (Ravens-Sieberer et al. 2007).
A comparative analysis of six longitudinal studies in
New Zealand, the United States and Canada, which began
with several thousand participants at birth and continued
until adolescence, also explored the connection between
early physical aggression in childhood and later acts of
physical violence in adolescence. Depending on the sample
between 4 and 10% of the boys showed a continuity of
physical aggression. The boys who were already chroni-
cally aggressive in elementary school age had an increased
risk of higher levels of violent activity and other forms of
offenses later during their adolescence between the ages of
13 and 18. Among the girls, the chronically aggressive
groups uctuated between 0 and 10% in the various studies
and there were no clear predictors of later behavior in
measured degrees of aggressive behavior in childhood.
These studies also concluded that chronically aggressive
children already display a high level of disruptive behavior
by the time they enter kindergarten (Broidy et al. 2003).
Moftt (1993) identied two developmental paths in
male children and adolescents displaying antisocial
behavior including aggressive tendencies, to which the
greater majority could be classied, based on an analysis of
numerous studies: About two-thirds of the boys only epi-
sodically displayed conspicuous antisocial behavior during
adolescence (adolescence-limited). A small group of
approximately 5% of the boys already displayed such
behavior in the preschool stage of childhood and perma-
nently maintained it throughout adolescence (life-course
persistent).
In summarizing the insights of all these longitudinal
studies on the development of aggression and antisocial
behavior during childhood, there seems to be a rst peak of
the prevalence of these behaviors around the third year,
particularly for boys. A second peak for the majority can be
found during mid to late adolescencethose who are
episodically conspicuous. Taken together in an ideal type,
the result is a camel humps curve of the prevalence of
(episodic) aggression in childhood and adolescence. Of
special interest is a small group of boys (and a very small
one of girls) at the base of this curve with considerable
antisocial behavior and particularly high levels of chronic
aggression during childhood and adolescence. In a rst
step, this article examines whether the prevalence and the
development of child aggressiveness according to new data
from Germany corresponds to these international ndings.
There is a wealth of biological, psychological and
sociological ndings concerning the causes of aggression
and aggressiveness (summaries by Heitmeyer and Hagan
2003; Tremblay et al. 2005; Wahl 2009). Researchers
explain the early onset of aggressive behavior of children
by biological factors, learning processes and frustration
leading to aggressive reactions as early as in the rst year.
Moreover, with an increasing sense of autonomy, children
come up against parental limits that could trigger aggres-
sion. Later, the level of childrens aggression decreases
because their moral development is so effective that they
display more socially acceptable behavior (Alink et al.
2006), they are better able to tolerate waiting for a reward
and to use language, rather than hitting, as a means of
convincing others beginning at this age (Tremblay 2007).
J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355 345
1 3
Parents can inuence the aggressiveness of their chil-
dren in different ways, by their genes inducing precondi-
tions for aggressiveness (Perusse and Gendreau 2005), by
the mothers behavior during pregnancy (e.g., smoking)
(Huijbregts et al. 2007), by the parenting style (Georgiou
2008), by the emotional family climate as a possible trigger
of childrens aggressiveness (Lau et al. 2006) and by the
socioeconomic and cultural environment (facilitated by
income, education, etc.) which they offer to the children
(Barker et al. 2008). In this article we are especially
interested in the parents role in the intergenerational
transmission of problem behavior like child aggressiveness
by some aspects of their general behavior (Meurs et al.
2009): (1) The parents temperaments expressed in corre-
sponding behavior tendencies (externalizing and internal-
izing behavior), (2) their parenting styles (child-centered
communication, control, violence; the emotional family
climate as result of parental behavior) and (3) the self-
images of the mothers and fathers. Children can react to all
these parental behaviors and expressions by insecure or
disorganized attachment, epigenetic reactions (e.g.,
increased sensitivity to environmental inuences), identi-
cation, imitation, opposition and emotional reactions such
as fear, insecurity, frustration, anger, a sense of power-
lessness, low self-esteem, etc. which can promote aggres-
siveness (McNamara et al. 2010; Meyer-Lindenberg et al.
2006; Wahl 2002; Zoccolillo et al. 2005).
An interesting question is the mediating role of par-
enting on the relation between parental attributes and the
childrens behaviors (van Aken et al. 2007). Foci of this
article are on these two factors which are also relevant
for prevention programs for parents trying to minimize
child aggression. Up to now many of the prevention
programs are aiming at the socioeconomic situation of
the parents and the parenting styles (Brotman et al. 2008;
Tremblay 2008). This is not enough. The parents tem-
perament with corresponding behavioral tendencies (e.g.,
externalizing behavior) and afliated attributes (e.g., self-
images of mothers and fathers) may interfere with
learning a modied parenting style, e.g., a mothers
disposition to externalizing behavior makes it difcult for
her to raise her children without violence. We argue here
that prevention programs should consider that such fac-
tors play important roles for the development of child
aggressiveness.
The gender constellation between mothers, fathers,
daughters, and sons may also play a role, as shown by
Casas et al. (2006): A permissive style on the part of
mothers was associated with a higher degree of physical
aggressiveness in girls. In comparison, an authoritative (not
authoritarian) style was coupled with less aggressiveness in
girls. Boys and girls were more aggressive when the
mothers employed a psychologically controlling style of
parenting. When the fathers behaved like this, the girls
were more aggressive but not the boys.
Against this background, in a secondary analysis of the
data of a representative longitudinal study and an addi-
tional study on the situation of parents and children in
Germany we try to attain the following goals.
The rst goal is an analysis of the prevalence and
development of child aggressiveness: Do these data conrm
international ndings of decreasing prevalence of aggres-
siveness in boys and girls (on different levels) between 5
and 11 years, paralleled by a minority of chronically
aggressive children as a risk group for later criminal vio-
lence? Does an additional study conrm international
ndings of an U-shaped curve between 5 and 17 years
corresponding with the valley of the camel humps curve?
The second goal of the article is an analysis of some
inuences of parents on the aggressiveness of the children:
How strong are the relative effects of (1) some aspects of
the temperaments, behavioral tendencies and afliated
attributes of the mothers and fathers, (2) the parenting
styles, and (3) the socioeconomic situation of the families
on the aggressiveness of their boys and girls? Regarding
the second goal, we want to test the hypothesis that the
mothers and fathers externalizing and internalizing
behaviors, their self-images and the family climate have
comparable strong effects on the development of aggres-
siveness in children as does the parenting style and the
socioeconomic situation of the parents. This would have
consequences for the starting points and foci for aggression
prevention, e.g., in parent education.
Methods
Participants
The following calculations use the data of the three survey
waves of the DJI Childrens Panel Study, a longitudinal
study of the German Youth Institute (Deutsches Jugend-
institut, DJI). It is based on a random sample of children
between 5 and 11 years (boys and girls with their parents)
from the registers of residents which is representative for
Germany (persons with migration backgrounds were
included if they had sufcient knowledge of German for
interviews and questionnaires). The rst wave of surveys
was in 2002 with 2,190 families that had children in two
age cohorts (the younger with 5- to 6-year-olds; the older
cohort had 8- to 9-year-olds). Children and mothers were
surveyed at home through standardized interviews and the
fathers by questionnaires. For the 5- to 8-year-olds, for
methodological reasons (length and comprehensibility of
the interview) instead of the children the mothers were
consulted regarding the questions on behalf of the children.
346 J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355
1 3
The second wave of survey was in 2004 and the third in
2005. See Table 1 for the design of the DJI Childrens
Panel Study.
Besides the data from the DJI Childrens Panel, which
only extends to the age of about 1112 years, data is also
available from an additional representative study by the
German Youth Institute starting in 2007 in which children
and adolescents in Germany between 13 and 17 years of
age were surveyed (N = 1,372). In both studies the chil-
dren and adolescents responded to the statement, I like to
ght, on a four-tiered scale ranging from agreement to
disagreement.
Instruments
The Childrens Panel Study was planned by scientists from
the German Youth Institute as well as from German and
Austrian universities. The broad variety of their research
interests on the one hand and the limited duration of the
interviews on the other hand resulted in compromises like
shortened lists of items in some questions and tests. This
restricts the possible analyses in this article.
One of the main instruments of the DJI Childrens Panel
was a scale for the temperament and behavior of the
children. The 30 items came in parts from the Child
Behavior Checklist (CBCL) (Achenbach 1991), the Tem-
perament Scale (Windle and Lerner 1986) or its shortened
version (Schwarz and Rinker 1998), and a Leipzig Longi-
tudinal Study (Zentralinstitut fur Jugendforschung 1988).
Based on a factor analysis three indices were formed from
this scale to determine the aggressiveness of the children
(from the perspective of the children, mothers, and fathers)
in the three survey waves by the average of the answer
values for the items likes to ght, enjoys making others
angry, often starts arguments with others on a scale of
1 (completely incorrect) to 4 (completely correct). For the
mothers perspective on the childrens aggressiveness the
internal consistency (Cronbachs a) for the three waves was
.67, .69, and .70 (fathers perspective: .71, .71, .74; chil-
drens perspective: .51, .50, .53). In the following text the
degrees of child aggressiveness resulting from combina-
tions of the three perspectives or for means over the three
survey waves are described as aggressive (with a value of
3.004.00 on the scale), slightly aggressive (2.012.99) and
not aggressive (1.002.00).
For gathering statistics about some aspects of the tem-
perament and behavior of the parents, the mothers and
fathers were asked to respond to 11 items on a newly
developed four-level response scale covering three
dimensions (according to a factor analysis): Four items
such as sometimes I am sad, I sometimes feel unsure of
myself (mothers perspective in the rst wave: a = .71;
fathers perspective: .75) attributed to a factor which
described a depressive mood and internalizing behavior.
Other factors were impulsivity/rage (predisposing to
externalizing behavior) with two items: I often act before
thinking things over and I am often angry at others (in
the case of two items the correlation is calculated instead of
a: Mothers perspective r = .34** and fathers perspective
r = .33**; **P B .01) and a positive self-image: Five
items such as I am usually in a good mood, I am proud
of things that I have accomplished (a = .63 and .61).
The second wave of the DJI Childrens Panel Study also
investigated the parenting styles in two dimensions:
attention and control. Using a scale in accordance with
Simons et al. (1992), the parents provided information
about the mothers and fathers communication with their
children with regard to how much attention they pay to the
childrens needs and desires. Child-centered communica-
tion was measured by six items such as speaking with the
Table 1 Design of the DJI
childrens panel study. The gray
boxes represent the two age
cohorts
DJI Childrens Panel Study
Childs
age
First wave
n = 2190
Second wave
n = 1493
Third wave
n = 1293

2 1 - 1 1 620 mothers
351 fathers
620 children
9-10 722 mothers
484 fathers
722 children

8-9 1042 mothers
658 fathers
1042 children
673 mothers
379 fathers
673 children
6-7 771 mothers
503 fathers
child mother (proxy)

5-6 1148 mothers
678 fathers
child mother (proxy)

J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355 347
1 3
child about his/her experiences and asking the childs
opinion in matters that concern him/her (mothers per-
spective a = .70, fathers perspective .75). In addition,
parents informed about the extent to which they exercise
strict or mild control in parenting using a scale of Schwarz
et al. (1997) with ve items such as I dont think that a
child should defy adults and I believe in punishment if
the child acts against my will (a = .70 and .74). The use
of violence in child-raising was asked by means of an
abridged version of the Conict Tactics Scales (CTS)
(Straus 2007) with three items to report on their own
behavior: Spanking or shaking the child, slapping the
face, and hitting (a = .58 and .63).
The emotional climate in the family was determined from
the combined perspectives of the parents and the children
through a scale of ve items (according to Zinnecker and
Silbereisen 1996) that includes questions such as whether
there is often friction within the family, whether it is
possible for family members to speak freely, and whether
each member goes his/her own way (a = .70).
The family income, the educational level of the mothers
and fathers and a migrant background of the child were
used as variables for the social status and the living con-
ditions of the families. The family income (resulting from
the information given by the fathers and the mothers) was
measured in accordance with the equivalence income
dened by the OECD, i.e., the income of the parents set off
against various weighting for adults, children up to and
older than 14 years (cf. Alt and Quellenberg 2005, p. 289);
the educational level of the parents reached from no
graduation up to high school graduation and higher; the
migrant background of the child was dened following the
German Federal Statistical Ofce as born as a foreigner in
Germany or immigrated to Germany or with at least one
parent who immigrated to Germany.
The data analysis (by SPSS) of the Childrens Panel Study
had two steps: First, descriptive statistics were performed to
assess the prevalence and development of child aggressive-
ness fromthe combined perspectives of the mothers, fathers,
and children. Second, we calculated correlations between
temperaments, behavioral tendencies and afliated attri-
butes of the parents and the childrens aggressiveness.
Finally, we used these variables for a stepwise regression
analysis predicting childrens aggressiveness.
Results
Development of Physical Aggressiveness in Children
and Adolescents
The parents assessed the level of their childrens aggres-
siveness as signicantly higher than the children
themselves. The childrens self-perspective showed a
stronger correlation with the perspective of the mothers
(r
wave 1
= .47**, r
wave 2
= .45**, and r
wave 3
= .47**;
both here and below **P\.01 and *P\.05) than with
the perspective of the fathers (r
wave 1
= .38**, r
wave 2
=
.42** and r
wave 3
= .31**). While the parents assessments
of aggressiveness tended to decline with increasing age,
the self-perception of the children remained nearly
unchanged.
The most ratings of the childrens aggressiveness came
from the mothers because only this group rated the children
between 5 and 8 years and the mothers outnumbered the
fathers. So from the mothers perspective, 2.3% of the
children were persistently aggressive (i.e., with values of
3.00 or more in all three waves), 3.6% of the boys and
1.0% of the girls. Half of the children (49.6%) were never
aggressive (38.3% of the boys and 60.5% of the girls).
21.4% were decreasingly aggressive; 9.8% were increas-
ingly aggressive.
Both age cohorts of children that were assessed in the
three survey waves allow age-related differentiated state-
ments about the development of the prevalence and the
degrees of child aggressiveness from the perspectives of
the mothers (Table 2).
The portions of aggressive children between the ages
of 5 and 11 decreased for both genders. Among the
aggressive boys, this prevalence decreased from 19.8%
among those with 5 years to 9.8% among those with
11 years, i.e., by a half. Among the aggressive girls, the
portion dropped from 11.2 to 3.8%, i.e., by almost two-
thirds. As regards the means of child aggressiveness, it
decreased in this time signicantly from 1.71 to 1.37 for
the boys and from 1.45 to 1.18 for the girls (P\.001).
The fathers and the children themselves also described
the boys as aggressive with signicantly greater fre-
quency than the girls.
The combination of results from the Childrens Panel
(starting at age 8, when the children themselves were
interviewed) and the additional study with children and
adolescents from 13 to 17 years reveal an age-related dis-
tribution for the item I like to ght as a measure for
aggressiveness for both genders from 8 to 17 years of age
(Wahl 2010) as shown in Table 3.
A synopsis of the data of the two studies shows that
among boys and girls there was a rst peak of the desire to
ght at the age of 9 years. In the following years this
indicator of aggressiveness decreased up to the age of 13.
Among boys this was followed by an increase up to the age
of 16, and then a decrease again up to the age of 17.
Among girls there was a uctuating distribution between
the ages of 13 and 17. All in all, there is a roughly
U-shaped development in the distribution of aggressive-
ness, particularly among boys.
348 J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355
1 3
Factors that Promote Aggressiveness in Children
The hypothesis of this article is that specic aspects of
parental attributes (externalizing and internalizing behav-
ior, self-image) have comparable strong effects on the
development of child aggressiveness as parenting styles
and the social status of the families. As a preparatory step
to test this hypothesis, correlations between these variables
and childrens aggressiveness are presented in Table 4.
All variables apart from the parents self-images and
educational levels showed signicant correlations with the
childrens aggressiveness, but gender modied these cor-
relations. As Table 4 displays as well, the gender of parents
and children had an inuence on the strength of the cor-
relations between parental behavioral tendencies and
attributes, parenting styles and child aggressiveness.
Comparatively strong correlations were between the
mothers and fathers low level of child-centered
communication as well as their use of violence in parenting
and the childrens aggressiveness. Higher paternal exter-
nalizing behavior was related to more aggression in girls,
higher paternal internalizing behavior was related to more
aggression in boys. A low family income was correlated
with higher aggressiveness of girls.
A stepwise regression analysis provided more informa-
tion about the effects of the groups of factors in mothers
and fathers attributes and parenting styles compared with
other variables (Table 5).
The steps of this analysis introduced consecutively the
childrens gender, mothers and fathers parenting styles,
the family climate, mothers and fathers behavioral ten-
dencies and the social status of the family. After the last
step (step 7) the explained variance of child aggressive-
ness was R
2
= .27. Step 1 (childs gender) had a com-
paratively strong signicant effect. Step 2 (mothers
parenting style) and step 5 (mothers behavioral
Table 2 Prevalence and degree of child aggressiveness according to age and gender (mothers perspective; percentages, means, standard
deviations, and condence intervals)
Age (years)
5 6 7 8 9 10 11
Prevalence of aggressiveness (%)
Boys
Aggressive 19.8 17.6 20.9 13.2 14.9 8.1 9.8
Slightly aggressive 31.1 33.8 28.5 24.5 14.3 24.2 17.5
Not aggressive 49.1 48.6 50.6 62.4 70.8 67.7 72.7
Girls
Aggressive 11.2 10.9 9.0 6.7 4.7 5.0 3.8
Slightly aggressive 22.2 19.4 15.4 11.8 17.0 14.4 10.1
Not aggressive 66.5 69.7 75.6 81.5 78.4 80.7 86.1
Degree of aggressiveness (M)
Boys
M 1.71 1.69 1.70 1.51 1.51 1.40 1.37
SD .78 .75 .79 .72 .71 .64 .66
95% CI 1.64 1.57 1.60 1.44 1.36 1.31 1.30
1.78 1.81 1.80 1.58 1.66 1.49 1.45
n 485 148 239 433 88 198 285
Girls
M 1.45 1.41 1.33 1.25 1.25 1.24 1.18
SD .69 .68 .64 .57 .52 .54 .47
95% CI 1.38 1.31 1.25 1.20 1.13 1.16 1.12
1.51 1.51 1.42 1.31 1.36 1.32 1.23
n 454 175 201 416 77 181 288
N 939 323 440 849 165 379 573
M mean; SD standard deviation; CI condence interval. Difference of means between boys and girls: ** P\.01. Sometimes children of the
same age were included in more than one survey wave. To simplify the table for these cases only the boys and girls of the wave with the greatest
number of children of this age were considered. There were only 36 children in the age group of 12-year-olds, therefore no percentages and
means were calculated for this group
J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355 349
1 3
tendencies) led to the highest increase of the explained
variance (DR
2
). The emotional family climate (step 4) had
only very small effects. The fathers behavioral tendencies
(step 6) and the social status of the family (step 7) as well
brought small effects as shown by the variance of chil-
drens aggressiveness explained by these groups of fac-
tors. Looking at the individual standardized regression
coefcients, the results of the correlation analysis were
partially echoed by the signicant weights of the mothers
with low child centered communication, externalizing
fathers and low family income. All in all, the effect of the
fathers variables was weaker than the effect of the
mothers variables. Separate stepwise regression analyses
for boys and girls resulted in additional effects: In the case
of the boys the mothers positive self-image and in the
case of girls the migrant background had signicant
impacts.
Discussion
Due to the various denitions and methods used in the
international studies on child aggression and aggressive-
ness summarized at the beginning, as well as in the DJI
Childrens Panel Study and the additional study, the nd-
ings on the extent of such behavioral tendencies cannot be
precisely compared. However, this is possible for the
structure (e. g., the stronger distribution among boys than
girls) and the trajectories through the age levels. Our data
showed a decreasing prevalence of aggressiveness between
5 and 11 years in Germany which is consistent with
international longitudinal studies. In combination with the
data of an additional study with adolescents up to 17 years
the prevalence of aggressiveness (as the desire to ght)
followed roughly an U-shaped curve corresponding to the
valley of the camel humps curve, but somewhat
Table 3 Agreement of children and adolescents with the statement I like to ght by age and gender (childrens perspective; percentages,
means, standard deviations, and condence intervals)
Childrens panel study Additional study
Age (years) Age (years)
8 9 10 11 13 14 15 16 17
I like to ght (%)
Boys
Strongly agree 16.7 20.5 10.7 8.1 0.9 3.8 4.9 2.5 1.9
Agree 15.5 23.9 14.2 13.3 13.9 7.1 11 15.9 12.5
Disagree 20.6 20.5 28.9 37.2 30.6 45.5 39.9 44.6 40.4
Strongly disagree 47.2 35.2 46.2 41.4 54.6 43.6 44.2 36.9 45.2
Girls
Strongly agree 7.6 10.4 6.7 8.4 0 3.6 3.9 1.3 3.3
Agree 8.1 7.8 8.3 5.6 4.3 5.1 5.5 9.3 9.8
Disagree 15.9 23.4 21.1 17.4 39.1 42 27.1 37.1 28.7
Strongly disagree 68.5 58.4 63.9 68.6 56.5 49.3 63.5 52.3 58.2
Degree of aggressiveness (M)
Boys
M 2.02 2.30 1.89 1.88 1.61 1.71 1.77 1.84 1.71
SD 1.14 1.16 1.01 .93 .76 .76 .84 .78 .76
95% CI 1.91 2.05 1.75 1.77 1.47 1.59 1.64 1.72 1.56
2.12 2.54 2.04 1.99 1.76 1.83 1.90 1.96 1.86
n 432 88 197 285 108 156 163 157 104
Girls
M 1.55 1.70 1.58 1.54 1.48 1.63 1.50 1.60 1.58
SD .93 1.00 .90 .93 .58 .75 .77 .71 .80
95% CI 1.46 1.47 1.45 1.43 1.36 1.50 1.38 1.48 1.44
1.93 1.71 1.64 1.64 1.76 1.61 1.71 1.73 1.64
n 409 77 180 287 92 138 181 151 122
N 841 165 377 572 200 294 344 308 226
DJI Childrens Panel Study and Additional Study. M mean; SD standard deviation; CI condence interval. Sometimes children and adolescents of
the same age were interviewed in more than one survey wave. To simplify the table for these cases only the boys and girls of the wave with the
greatest number of children of this age were considered
350 J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355
1 3
phase-delayed in comparison to other studies: Our data
suggests (at least for the indicator of desire to ght) a
later rst peak and a somewhat later low point in the
development of aggressiveness. Also, the existence of a
small group of chronically aggressive children (primarily
boys) in the Childrens Panel conforms to ndings of
international studies (Alink et al. 2006; Lay et al. 2005;
Moftt 1993; Moftt et al. 1996; Tremblay 2007).
In addition, our data explored effects of some aspects of
the parental temperaments, behavioral tendencies, parent-
ing styles, self-images, and the social status of the families
on child aggressiveness that conrm and specify our
hypothesis: There were signicant connections between
some aspects of the parents temperament and behavior
(particularly internalizing and externalizing behavior) and
child aggressiveness. Among the parenting styles, a weak
child-centered communication and the use of violence in
parenting were effective. The family climate had only
minor effects. The family income and to a smaller degree a
migrant background and the educational level of the
mothers inuenced the childrens aggressiveness. Some
effects of the parents attributes and parenting styles
depended on the gender of the parents and children (e.g.,
fathers violence in child-rearing was more correlated with
aggressiveness of boys than of girls). All in all, the moth-
ers impact on child aggressiveness was higher than the
fathers impact. Compared to parenting styles, some
aspects of the parents temperament and behavioral ten-
dencies had a remarkable impact on the aggressiveness of
their children.
In sum, most parts of the hypotheses of this article were
conrmed: Within the limits of the measured variables,
aspects of the parental temperament or behavioral ten-
dencies had at least as strong effects on the development of
aggressiveness in children as the parenting styles and the
social status of the parents. What are possible explanations
for that? Temperament and corresponding behavioral ten-
dencies of parents and children are strongly inuenced by
shared genes favoring similar personalities and behaviors.
In contrast, the effects of parenting styles are contingent
learning processes in which children can react to their
parents by all degrees of adaptation and resistance.
However, biological, learning and environmental factors
work together in inuencing the aggressiveness of children.
The past years have seen increasing interdisciplinary
research on revealing this complicated interplay of bio-
logical, psychological and environmental inuences on
aggression: Environmental factors can inuence gene
expression (epigenetics) or interfere with brain maturation.
Genetic factors can affect brain areas to the extent that
children become particularly sensitive with regard to
environmental experiences (Meyer-Lindenberg et al.
2006). Hyperactive children provoke hostile parenting
behavior, which in turn makes the children aggressive
(Thomas and Chess 1977). Regarding inuences on chil-
drens aggressiveness, Tremblay and Szyf hypothesize that
environmental effects are transmitted intergenerationally,
most clearly from mothers to daughters; e.g., smoking,
stress and depression during pregnancy have epigenetic
effects on the daughters brain development. The daughter
probably will have a similar lifestyle during her own
pregnancies, and so on. In this way, mother to daughter
epigenetic transmission of behavior problems could be the
hidden mechanism of intergenerational transmission of
male chronic aggression (Tremblay and Szyf 2010). Fol-
lowing this line of argument and the results of the DJI
Childrens Panel, a wide spectrum of behavior patterns of
mothers and fathers should be regarded as possible factors
for the childrens aggressiveness, not only parenting styles
as a focus of many contemporary parent education
programs.
Our data show a connection between the externalizing
behavior of parents and the aggressiveness of their chil-
dren. This can be done by different processes (genes,
imitation, frustration) (Leve et al. 2010). The effects of
high degrees of internalizing behavior of parents on the
childrens aggressiveness (as in the data of the Childrens
Panel) are complicated as well. Studies of Loeber et al.
(1998) and Garland (2007) suggest that anxiety, depression
Table 4 Correlations of variables (survey waves 1 and 2) with
childrens aggressiveness (survey wave 3)
Variables Survey
wave
Total
r
Boys
r
Girls
r
Childs gender
a
1 -.24**
Child-centered mother 2 -.19** -.19** -.12*
Controlling mother 2 .12** .07 .13*
Violent mother 2 .22** .17** .19**
Child-centered father 2 -.17** -.16** -.16**
Controlling father 2 .11** .09 .04
Violent father 2 .20** .17** .11*
Good family climate 2 -.13** -.15 -.15
Externalizing mother 1 .13** .10 .11*
Internalizing mother 1 .15** .13* .13*
Mothers positive self-image 1 .03 .05 .01
Externalizing father 1 .16** .14* .21**
Internalizing father 1 .14** .17** .09
Fathers positive self-image 1 -.04 -.07 .02
Mothers educational level 1 .01 .05 -.02
Fathers educational level 1 .01 -.01 -.02
Family income 1 -.10* -.04 -.16**
Migrant background
b
1 .06* .06 .04
n 292726 149365 143361
Reference categories:
a
boy,
b
no migrant background. r Pearsons
correlation or Kendalls tau b. ** P\.01; * P\.05
J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355 351
1 3
and related stress contribute to a parents problematic use
of parenting techniques which in turn leads to aggressive-
ness in children. However, more aspects of child-raising
behavior might be inuenced by the internalizing behavior
of parents, e.g., inconsistencies of the parental behavior.
Another study with the data from the Childrens Panel
revealed that such inconsistencies lead to more external-
izing behavior of the children (Huber 2008).
In parenting, a low level of child-centered communi-
cation and the use of physical violence can activate
aggressiveness in the children, as shown by our data. Using
violence in child rearing, as manifested by a part of the
mothers and fathers in this study, may be connected with a
childs aggressiveness by different mechanisms, e.g., imi-
tation, a frustration-aggression reaction or by a number of
shared genes of parents and children (Baker et al. 2007;
Brendgen et al. 2005; Hudziak et al. 2003; Miles and Carey
1997; van den Oord et al. 1994; Wahl 2009).
In addition, the research literature reports on various
effects of parental styles on child aggressiveness depending
on the gender constellation between mothers, fathers, girls,
and boys that is considered (e.g., Casas et al. 2006). This
can be conrmed by the data from the Childrens Panel
Study. The inuences of maternal parenting differed from
those of paternal parenting and both parenting styles
depended on the childs gender. We could hypothesize that
boys rather react disappointed, angrily and aggressively to
fathers internalizing behavior and girls react angrily and
aggressively to fathers externalizing behavior because it is
contrary to their role expectations. Future research should
offer more answers to open questions about such
differences.
Aspects of the social status like the educational level of
the parents, the family income and a migrant background
are part of the usual suspects in aggression research
(Wahl 2009, p. 153 ff) and they were found correlated with
Table 5 Stepwise regressions predicting childrens aggressiveness (b)
Variables Standardized regression coefcients (b)
Step 1 Step 2 Step 3 Step 4 Step 5 Step 6 Step 7
Childs gender
a
-.28** -.22** -.21** -.22* -.19** -.21** -.19**
Mothers parenting style
Child-centered mother -.18** -.14* -.13 -.10 -.08 -.07
Controlling mother .06 .06 .06 .07 .06 .06
Violent mother .11 .10 .09 .09 .10 .09
Fathers parenting style
Child-centered father -.10 -.07 -.07 -.07 -.03
Controlling father .01 .01 .04 .05 .05
Violent father .02 .02 .03 .02 .00
Family climate -.09 -.06 -.05 -.09
Mothers behavioral tendencies
Externalizing mother .06 .07 .10
Internalizing mother .21** .20** .18**
Mothers positive self-image .07 .08 .09
Fathers behavioral tendencies
Externalizing father .15* .13
Internalizing father .05 .04
Fathers positive self-image .02 .01
Social status
Mothers education -.10
Fathers education .08
Family income -.14*
Migrant background
b
.14
Constant 2.03 2.36 2.48 2.70 1.93 1.55 1.55
Standard error .42 .41 .41 .41 .40 .40 .39
R
2
.08 .14 .15 .15 .20 .23 .27
DR
2
.06** .01 .01 .05** .03 .04*
Reference categories:
a
boy,
b
no migrant background. N = 292, ** P\.01; * P\.05
352 J Child Fam Stud (2012) 21:344355
1 3
child aggressiveness in our data as well. These variables
imply knowledge decits or could lead to negative patterns
of parenting according to the frustration-aggression theory.
The ndings of this secondary analysis of the data from
the DJI Childrens Panel are subject to some limitations
caused by the design, the sample, and the methods of this
study which was a compromise of interests of a heteroge-
neous group of scientists from different institutes and
scarce resources. The target person of the study refused to
participate in approximately one quarter of the gross ran-
dom sample. Due to these refusals and the exclusion of
migrants with insufcient knowledge of German (there was
an additional study for migrants who did not speak German
at all) persons with certain difculties in life might be
underrepresented. As usual in longitudinal studies the
decreasing number of participants from one survey wave to
the next might have led to a greater loss of persons with life
problems than others. Older children and mothers were
questioned by interviewers; the fathers lled out a ques-
tionnaire, this difference could imply some distortions in
the responses. Despite the interviewers efforts, they were
not always successful in questioning the children in
absence of the mothers and fathers.
Family socialization includes two-way processes, e.g.,
the effects between negative parenting and child aggression
are bidirectional (Vitaro et al. 2006). Such effects need
more research. Nevertheless, the study has determined that
some personal characteristics of the parents (e.g., inter-
nalizing and externalizing behavior) seem to have signi-
cant inuences on the degree of child aggressiveness. The
effects of these personal attributes seem to be as strong as
various aspects of the parenting style or the family income.
For a more systematic analysis of the relations between
parents temperament, their corresponding behavioral ten-
dencies and parenting styles further research is needed
because the Childrens Panel offered only a restricted set of
variables. The strengths of the DJI Childrens Panel are the
representative sample, the longitudinal design, and the
three-sided perspectives from the mothers, fathers, and
children.
Considering the children with high degrees of aggres-
siveness with only 5 years of age and continuing aggres-
siveness one consequence for the practice has become
clear: Since the development of aggression in future violent
criminals not only has a considerable genetic component
but can also be promoted by inuences of the social
environment beginning during pregnancy, by epigenetic
processes starting early in life in the family, by parenting
styles etc., measures to prevent aggression and violence
should be initiated at a very early stage and over the long
term, and they have to consider the individual personalities
of parents, not only the parenting styles. This is an
important advice for parent education, too.
Acknowledgments The empirical research was supported by the
German Youth Institute, Munich. The review of literature was facil-
itated by a fellowship from the Institute for Advanced Study, Del-
menhorst, awarded to Klaus Wahl. We thank the families who
participated in the studies and Christian Alt, Beatriz Barquero, and
Ulrich Potter for comments on drafts of the text.
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