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Panel information
Panel 6. Developmental Psychopathology

Abstract

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Introduction: Psychological aggression, the most common subtype of adverse childhood experiences with a global prevalence of 36.3% (Stoltenborgh et al., 2015), often has a negative and long-lasting impact across different domains in life, which might also impact the next generation (Liu et al., 2019). However, psychological aggression has not received equal attention as general child maltreatment or other forms of child maltreatment (i.e., physical and sexual abuse; see review by Su et al., 2022). Moreover, research on the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment has primarily focused on caregiving contextual factors (e.g., caregiving quality, child exposure to maltreatment) as important mediators (Leslie et al., 2023; Sierau et al., 2020), while potential physiological mechanisms remain largely unknown, particularly among adolescents. Understanding these psychophysiological mechanisms is essential for disrupting this negative cycle through the identification of biomarkers and targeted interventions. According to the model of intergenerational transmission of stress (Bowers & Yehuda, 2016), the intergenerational transmission of child maltreatment may "get under the skin", impairing the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis functioning in the offspring, which increases vulnerability to psychopathology. Therefore, the current study examined the association between parental history of psychological aggression and their adolescents' internalizing and externalizing problems, as well as the mediating roles of parental psychological aggression and adolescent cortisol reactivity to stress.
Methods: We recruited 143 Chinese adolescents (67 girls and 76 boys; Mage = 11.20, SD = 0.86) and their parents (92 mothers and 51 fathers; Mage = 39.60, SD = 4.45). Adolescents participated in the Modified Trier Social Stress Test, during which six salivary cortisol samples were collected. Their parents reported on questionnaires about their childhood psychological aggression experiences, their psychological aggression towards their children, and adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems.
Results: Parental history of psychological aggression was positively associated with both internalizing (β = 0.23, SE = 0.08, p = .005) and externalizing problems (β = 0.20, SE = 0.09, p = .023). Parental psychological aggression mediated the associations between parental history of psychological aggression and adolescent internalizing problems (β = 0.063, 95%CI = [0.005, 0.159]) as well as between parental history of psychological aggression and adolescent externalizing problems (β = 0.071, 95%CI = [0.004, 0.181]). The mediating effect of parental psychological aggression accounted for 28.13% of the total effect on internalizing problems and 35.68% on externalizing problems. Additionally, parental psychological aggression and cortisol reactivity only served as chain mediators between parental history of psychological aggression and adolescent internalizing problems (β = 0.017, 95%CI = [0.001, 0.057]). The chain mediating effect explained 7.59% of the total effect of parental history of psychological aggression on internalizing problems.
Conclusions: Results demonstrated an intergenerational effect of parental history of psychological aggression on adolescent internalizing and externalizing problems. Since psychological aggression can influence multiple generations, our findings highlight the need to raise public awareness of psychological aggression and its negative consequences, as well as the importance of identifying biomarkers to determine which offspring are more susceptible to psychopathology.

Author information

Author	Role
Shiyuan Xiang, Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University	Presenting author
Christiane Wesarg-Menzel, Institute for Psychosocial Medicine, Psychotherapy and Psychooncology, Jena University Hospital, Friedrich-Schiller University	Non-presenting author
Meijing Chen, Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University	Non-presenting author
Danhua Lin, Institute of Developmental Psychology, Beijing Normal University	Non-presenting author

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