The purpose of this study is examining the mediation effect of callous-unemotional trait in the relationship of child abuse and children''s aggression. Children’s aggression is one of the most frequently studied psychological and behavioral phenomena because it is not only an important childhood mal-adjustment, but also it can lead to serious problems in later life including violent crime. Previous research suggest one strong causal relationship between aggression and child abuse. Meanwhile, recent increase of children’s involvement in excessive aggressive behaviors drew attention on the role of callous-unemotional trait with aggression. This study focused on the influence of various types of child abuse on aggression, and mediating effect of callous-unemotional trait.
Self administered questionnaires were collected from four hundreds and twenty-three 5th and 6th graders of Cheongju city and Cheongwon area. Collected data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Cronbach''s , t-test, F-test, Sheffe post-hoc test, Pearson''s correlation, and stepwise multiple regression analysis using SPSS 18.0 version.
The results of this study were as follows.
First, it was found that among the children’s abuse experiences, witnessing their parents’ violence against each other was the most commonly experienced one, followed by physical abuse, neglecting, and emotional abuse in turn.
Second, school grade and mother’s employment status brought statistically significant differences on children’s aggression. Experienced child abuse was differentiated by gender, school grade, father’s occupation, and family financial status. Father’s occupation, mother’s education level, and family financial status were another socio-demographic characteristics which brought significant differences in children’s callous-unemotional trait.
Third, experienced child abuse proved to explain the extent of aggression and callous-unemotional trait. Specifically, callous-unemotional trait showed partial mediation effect in the relationship of emotional abuse and aggression, physical abuse and aggression, and in the relationship of neglect and aggression. Interestingly, when limited to the cases of boys only, the role of callous-unemotional trait became full mediation effect in the relationship of neglect and aggression.
In conclusion, this study showed that the level of child abuse affected children’s callous-unemotional trait and aggression, and CU trait eventually influenced aggression. The results suggest that to control children’s aggression, children should be cared and protected from family violence including witnessing parental violence against each other as well as child abuse and neglect. Research findings also strongly suggest that programs that promote and enrich children’s emotional development must receive full attention in the arena of child services as children’s emotional problems such as callous-unemotional trait nurtured by harsh parenting can affect adversely to children’s aggression.