(PS3-95) Witnessed Community Violence and Aggression in Childhood: The Moderating Role of Emotion Regulation

Witnessed community violence has been consistently linked to aggressive behavior over time, but it is not yet clear whether it increases risk for specific forms of aggression. Physical and relational aggression are important to distinguish between given that they can present differently across childhood and differentially predict a range of negative outcomes. Prior work suggests that children’s ability to effectively regulate their emotions may serve as a protective factor against the development of aggression. Thus, the central aim of the current study was to evaluate emotion regulation as a moderator of the associations between witnessed community violence and forms of aggression over a 6-month period during middle childhood, with attention to potential gender differences. Participants included 242 children (50% male, 53% Hispanic, ages 7-12) in third through fifth grade and their homeroom teachers. Witnessed community violence and emotion regulation were assessed at baseline using child-reports. Teachers provided ratings of physical and relational aggression at baseline and again approximately 6 months later. The moderating effects of emotion regulation were examined using a series of multilevel path analysis models. Contrary to core hypotheses, witnessed community was not uniquely associated with physical or relational aggression and emotion regulation did not moderate the association between witnessed community violence and physical aggression in this study. However, findings revealed a three-way interaction between community violence, emotion regulation, and gender significantly predicted the random intercept for relational aggression, b = –1.10, SE = 0.51, p = .03. Follow-up analyses revealed that, at low levels of emotion regulation (< -.20 SD, lower bound), witnessed community violence predicted higher levels of relational aggression for girls. In essence, girls, who tend to be less likely to engage in physical aggression, may be resorting to relational aggression as a means to manage conflict. Results highlight relational aggression as a possible risk factor for girls in areas with high levels of community violence.