College students may withdraw friendship as a manipulation technique, according to a new study.

College students may withdraw friendship as a manipulation technique, according to a new study. (Source: Flicker, Credit: panache6260)

Caitlin Wagner and Jamie Abaied from the University of Vermont conducted a study that validated the link between controlling parenting styles and aggression in emerging adults, particularly college students. Furthermore, this study provided insight into how reactivity of the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), the part of the nervous system that responds to environmental stress, to parental stress causes college students to exhibit mean behavior either in retaliation or in a calculated and deliberate manner (1).

Parents exert psychological control over their children by “inducing guilt or shame, withdrawing affection or attention, and asserting authority” (2). People in the transition between adolescence and adulthood are highly susceptible to parental psychological control as a result of their growing need for autonomy and independence (1). Parental psychological control is particularly relevant to college students because physical closeness is not necessary, further undermining the child’s autonomy (1). Also, interpersonal relationships are very important to college students because of their need to integrate themselves into a new peer group (1).

Since the parent-child relationship provides youths with a model for other relationships, college students of psychologically controlling parents have previously shown to be more aggressive in interpersonal relationships (1). This aggression has been divided into two types. The first is reactive aggression that is often in response to perceived provocation, and the second kind is proactive aggression that is goal-oriented and manipulative (3).

Wagner and Abaied hypothesized that those with “high arousal” or increased SNS responses, such as raised heart rate and perspiration, during parental psychological controlling were more susceptible to reactive relational aggression, and those with “blunted arousal” were more susceptible to proactive relational aggression (1).

To test this hypothesis, the scientists used electrodes to measure the baseline SNS response of 180 predominately white female college students at rest, or unstimulated. Then, they measured the SNS responses of the students while they  completed surveys about their parents’ psychological control with statements like, “ my parents tell me I should feel guilty when I do not meet their expectations” (1). They then rated each statement on a five point scale of its likeliness (1). Using these tools, researchers determined each student’s individual reactivity and classified then as “high arousal” or “low arousal” (1). The students also completed surveys regarding their interpersonal aggression on the same five-point scale with statements like, “When I have been mad at a friend, I have flirted with his/her romantic partner” (1).

Their results suggest that students with highly psychologically controlling parents show more aggression in interpersonal relationships than those with less psychologically controlling parents (1). Also, students with “high arousal” during experiences of parental control tended to show aggression as a retaliatory response, whereas students with “low arousal” showed aggression as a calculated and manipulative response (1).

This study sheds light on “developmental processes of aggression in emerging adulthood,” and the researchers advise parents to use positive parenting styles that model healthier interpersonal behavior in emerging adults (1).  However, future study on this topic would benefit both from using a more ethnically diverse sample and from studying emerging adults who are not in college (1). Females were the predominant subject of this study because they have been shown to engage in interpersonal aggression, but studying this aggression across genders may occur in the future (4).

References

  1. Wagner, C. R., & Abaied, J. L. (2016). Skin Conductance Level Reactivity Moderates the Association Between Parental Psychological Control and Relational Aggression in Emerging Adulthood. Journal of Youth and Adolescence. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1007/s10964-016-0422-5
  1. Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental Psychological Control: Revisiting a Neglected Construct. Child Development, 67(6), 3296-3319. doi: 10.2307/1131780
  1. Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1996). Social Information-Processing Mechanisms in Reactive and Proactive Aggression. Child Development, 67(3), 993-1002. doi: 10.2307/1131875
  1. Card, N. A., Stucky, B. D., Sawalani, G. M., & Little, T. D. (2008). Direct and Indirect Aggression During Childhood and Adolescence: A Meta-Analytic Review of Gender Differences, Intercorrelations, and Relations to Maladjustment. Child Development, 79(5), 1185-1229. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8624.2008.01184.x