Longitudinal examination of family violence, posttraumatic stress, social skills, and aggression: An exploratory analysis

Aggression in adolescence is associated with many negative outcomes both during adolescence and later in adulthood. In order to properly prevent and treat aggression, it is important to understand what factors are associated with the development of aggression. This study examined how exposure to family violence, posttraumatic stress, and social skills were related to both parent- and adolescent-rated aggressive behavior. This study was comprised of two components. First, a series of mediation models were examined using structural equation modeling. Second, exploratory analyses of the moderating effects of adolescent race and gender were conducted using multiple regression. The sample consisted of 583 Black, Latino, and White adolescents aged 11 to 14 who participated in the second National Survey of Child and Adolescent Well-Being (NSCAW II) and were assessed with 3 waves of data over 36 months. Results from the first component of the study found that the base model that consisted of autoregressive effects and within-wave correlations provided a good fit to the data with important differences found between the parent and adolescent models. None of the mediation models were supported for either the parent or adolescent models. Results from the second component of the study found that race and gender substantially impacted the predictive relationships between the different factors and later aggression, and that these findings also differed based on whether the parent or adolescent was the informant. These findings further our understanding of how trauma-related factors and social skills relate to aggression longitudinally, which has important implications for interventions