WASHINGTON: Parents, take note! A harsh environment at home and less emotional warmth can make children aggressive and antisocial, a study has found.
Researchers from University of Pennsylvania and Michigan State University in the US analysed small differences in the parenting of 227 identical twin pairs.
They wanted to determine whether these differences predicted the likelihood of antisocial behaviours emerging.
The study, published in the Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, showed that the twin who experienced stricter or harsher treatment and less emotional warmth from parents had a greater chance of showing aggression as well as a set of characteristics known as callous-unemotional (CU) traits.
“Some of the early work on callous-unemotional traits focused on their biological bases, like genetics and the brain, making the argument that these traits develop regardless of what is happening in a child’s environment, that parenting doesn’t matter,” said Rebecca Waller, an assistant professor at University of Pennsylvania.
“We felt there must be something we could change in the environment that might prevent a susceptible child from going down the pathway to more severe antisocial behaviour,” said Waller.
The work is the latest in a series of studies from researchers using observation to assess a variety of aspects of parenting.
The initial research, which considered a biological parent and child, confirmed that parental warmth plays a significant role in whether CU traits materialise. (AGENCIES)
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