Parental Attitudes Toward Use of Aggression

For each item‚ decide whether you agree or disagree‚ then choose a number between 1 and 7 using thefollowing scale.
1. I let my child watch adventure television shows that have killing and violence in them.
2. If my child were teased by other kids at school‚ I would want my child to defend himself/herself even if itmeant hitting another child.
3. When my child does something wrong‚ talking about it with him/her helps more than spanking.
4. If my child gets into a fight with another child‚ I won’t try to stop it because my child has to show thatshe/he can defend herself/himself.
5. It is important to keep a gun at home to protect the family.
6. Sometimes a physical fight might help my child have a better relationship with other children.
7. It would bother me if my child saw one adult hit another in real life.
8. If I found out my child hit another child‚ I would be very disappointed‚ no matter what the reason.
9. I wouldn’t mind if my child got a reputation as the “toughest” kid in school.
10. I believe that television violence has a bad effect on children.
 
  • Attitude
  • Hitting
This instrument can be found on pages 304-305 of Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes‚ Behaviors‚ and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools‚ available online at: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf
 
Point values are assigned as follows:
■ 1 ■ 2 ■ 3 ■ 4 ■ 5 ■ 6 ■ 7
Definitely disagree=1
Neutral=4
Definitely agree=7
Point values are assigned as indicated above. Items 3‚ 7‚ 8 and 10 are reverse coded. Point values are summed and then divided by the number of items for each respondent. Higher scores indicate a greater acceptance ofusing aggression for problem solving.
 

Dodge KA‚ Pettit GS‚ Bates JE. Socialization mediators of the relation between socioeconomic status and child conduct problems. Child Development 1994;65:649-665.

 
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