Cognitive Mechanisms of the Transmission of Violence: Exploring Gender Differences among Adolescents Exposed to Family Violence

This study focuses on the mechanisms through which exposure to family violence leads to aggressive behavior in adolescents
who were the victims of abuse and neglect. A sample of 166 adolescents from residential child welfare and protection centers
for victims of abuse and neglect completed measures of victimization and witnessing violence at home, three schemas (justification
of violence, mistrust, and grandiosity), aggressiveness (proactive and reactive), and depression. The results showed that
witnessing family violence is more intensely associated with aggressiveness than victimization, and that part of this association
is mediated by schemas of justification of violence and grandiosity. Victimization was associated with less aggressiveness
and more depression, through the schema of mistrust. In girls exposure to family violence was more intensely associated with
aggressiveness.