Coercive family processes: A replication and extension of Patterson's coercion model

Patterson hypothesized that aggressive behavior develops in families when p arents use coercion as the primary mode for controlling their children, The model has been tested with boys and older children. In this paper, through confirmatory factor analysis, we examine how well the coercion model gener alizes to 5-year-old children (boys and girls), Our results suggest that th e model fits the data similarly for boys and girls. Few sex differences in child antisocial behavior were found on observed or parent-rated measures, nor were differences found in observed parent aversive responses to child b ehavior. This implies that similar coercion processes apply to both boys an d girls. (C) 2001 Wiley-Liss, Inc.