Harsh parenting mediates the relationship between parental work-family conflict and adolescent’s cyber aggression: a longitudinal study

A large number of studies have examined risk factors for cyber aggression, focusing on proximal factors such as intra-family factors and the individual’s personal factors, without research to date tapping the role of a seemingly distal but influential factor, namely, parents’ work-family conflict. This forms a prominent gap in current research on the risk for cyber aggression. Guided by the ecological perspective of parenting and child development, paternal/maternal work-family conflict would trigger harsh fathering/mothering and further put them at higher risk for cyber aggression. A sample of 883 adolescent students and their parents was recruited from two middle schools located in rural areas of Eastern China. At the three time points with half-year intervals, adolescents reported on harsh fathering, harsh mothering, and their own cyber aggression, and their parents reported on their own work-family conflict. We found that maternal work-family conflict positively predicted adolescent cyber aggression via the longitudinal mediating role of harsh fathering and harsh mothering, paternal work-family conflict predicted adolescent cyber aggression via the longitudinal mediating role of harsh mothering but not harsh fathering. These longitudinal findings could help clarify the complex relationships between paternal/maternal work-family conflict and harsh fathering/mothering and adolescent cyber aggression, providing guidance more effective for adolescent cyber aggression prevention.