Original scientific paper

Aggression, Parental and Peer Attachments, and Adolescent Self-Esteem

Silvija Ručević orcid.org/0000-0001-9091-2924 ; Studij psihologije, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta J.J. Strossmayera u Osijeku
Duvnjak Ivana ; Studij psihologije, Filozofski fakultet Sveučilišta J.J. Strossmayera u Osijeku

Abstract

The current study examined the association of attachment to parents and peers, self-esteem and severity of proactive and reactive aggression in a non-referred sample of boys (n = 92) and girls (n = 100), aged 15–17. Aggressive behaviors, self-esteem, and parental and peer attachments were assessed through self-report ratings.
In order to examine the predictive value of examined variables on the types of aggressive behaviors as criterion variables, several hierarchical regression analyses were performed. The self-esteem was a significant predictor of reactive aggression, whereas attachment to mother and peers were significant predictors of proactive and global aggressive behavior. It was also found that gender moderated the relationship between attachment to mother, peer attachment and proactive and global aggresion. Further investigation demonstrated that strong attachment to mother was related to a reduced risk for aggressive behaviors in boys. However, the attachment to peers had stronger effect on aggressive behavior in girls compared with boys.
Furthermore, analyses yielded significant interaction between self-esteem and gender, suggesting different association patters for girls and boys. Interaction predicting proactive aggression suggests that, with the increase in self-esteem, the mean levels of proactive aggression increased in girls, and decrease in boys.

Keywords

proactive and reactive aggression; self-esteem; attachment; peers; parents

Hrčak ID:

56831

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/56831

Publication date:

30.6.2010.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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