Date of Award

Fall 12-2025

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science (MS)

Department

Psychology

Program/Concentration

Psychology

Committee Director

Christina M. Rodriguez

Committee Member

James Paulson

Committee Member

Xiao Yang

Abstract

Family systems theories contextualize violence as occurring across multiple levels of the family, yet much of the existing literature focuses on a single family member’s outcome (i.e., the child) and neglects to include data collected from fathers. This study examined the associations between indicators of functioning at the dyadic-level in the family system—observed parenting, Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) perpetration, and Parent-Child Aggression (PCA) risk—and later overall family dysfunction. Participants were 180 mothers and 144 of their male partners evaluated when their child was 18 months old and re-evaluated at 4 years old. Measures of observed parenting, IPV perpetration, and PCA risk were collected at 18 months, and measures of IPV perpetration, PCA risk and family dysfunction were collected at 4 years. Hypotheses predicted the following: IPV perpetration at 18 months would predict greater PCA risk and family dysfunction at 4 years; PCA risk at 18 months would predict greater IPV perpetration and family dysfunction at 4 years; observed negative parenting at 18 months would predict greater IPV perpetration, PCA risk, and family dysfunction at 4 years; observed positive parenting at 18 months would predict less IPV perpetration, PCA risk, and family dysfunction at 4 years. Results of an autoregressive panel model partially supported the hypotheses. Later family dysfunction was predicted from measures of dyadic conflict for both mothers and fathers. Mothers’ early PCA risk predicted later IPV and family dysfunction. Fathers’ early PCA risk predicted later family dysfunction, and early IPV risk predicted later PCA risk and family dysfunction. However, observed parenting did not predicted subsequent dyadic or family level functioning, suggesting that observed parenting behavior is not as robust in predicting subsequent conflict relative to the other indicators of dyadic conflict. Findings from this study support whole family interventions that cross family subsystems rather than focusing only on the dyad (parent-to parent or parent-to-child) identified as at-risk.

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DOI

10.25777/srwr-gz79

ISBN

9798276039602

ORCID

0009-0009-5909-1887

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