Parental Support for Fighting

Abstract

The Parental Support for Fighting scale is a brief instrument designed to assess the perception of parental endorsement regarding different approaches to handling conflict and aggressive peer interactions. This tool differentiates between perceived support for aggressive solutions (e.g., hitting back) and support for non-aggressive solutions (e.g., seeking adult help or using verbal de-escalation). It is utilized primarily in youth studies focused on violence prevention and behavioral health.

Keywords

Parental support, aggression, conflict resolution, youth violence, perceived norms, family influence, student behavior.

Authors

Pamela Orpinas, Nancy Murray, Steven Kelder.

Purpose

The primary purpose of the Parental Support for Fighting scale is to measure the extent to which young people perceive their parents as encouraging or discouraging various behavioral responses to conflict, name-calling, or physical threats. This instrument serves as a critical measure in studies examining the role of familial influence on adolescent behavior, particularly concerning physical aggression and violence.

By distinguishing between perceived support for fighting (Aggressive Solutions) and support for peaceful alternatives (Non-Aggressive Solutions), the scale allows researchers to correlate specific parental communication patterns with the likelihood of youths engaging in or avoiding violent behaviors.

Construct

The scale measures the psychological construct of Perceived Parental Norms Regarding Conflict Resolution. This construct is operationalized through two distinct factors:

• Aggressive Solutions: The perceived endorsement by parents of retaliatory and confrontational behaviors, such as hitting back or initiating a fight. High scores indicate the perception of strong parental support for aggression or fighting in response to conflict.
• Non-Aggressive Solutions: The perceived endorsement by parents of peaceful, communicative, or avoidance strategies, such as ignoring insults, talking problems out, or seeking adult intervention. High scores indicate the perception of strong parental support for peaceful solutions to conflict.

Validity

While specific psychometric details like detailed convergent and discriminant validity coefficients are typically found in the primary source literature (e.g., Orpinas et al., 1999), the scale has demonstrated acceptable criterion validity. It has been shown to successfully correlate parental perceptions with observed aggressive behaviors and weapon carrying among youth, supporting its utility as a predictor of violence-related outcomes.

Its inclusion in the CDC’s comprehensive compendium of violence assessment tools suggests that it meets established standards for content and face validity within the field of violence prevention research.

Reliability

Reliability of the two primary subscales (Aggressive Solutions and Non-Aggressive Solutions) is typically assessed using internal consistency measures, such as Cronbach’s Alpha. Studies utilizing this instrument, particularly those conducted under the Multisite Violence Prevention Project, generally report acceptable to good internal consistency, ensuring that the items within each subscale reliably measure the intended underlying dimension of parental support.

Researchers should consult the original methodological publications by Orpinas and colleagues for precise reliability coefficients obtained across different cohorts and administration settings.

Factor Analysis

The structure of the Parental Support for Fighting scale is fundamentally based on a two-factor model. The initial development and validation processes likely utilized factor analysis to confirm that the 10 items load distinctly onto two separate, albeit related, dimensions: Aggressive Solutions (Items 1-5) and Non-Aggressive Solutions (Items 6-10).

This factorial structure confirms that perceived parental endorsement of violence is empirically distinct from perceived parental endorsement of peaceful means of conflict resolution, allowing for nuanced assessment in behavioral psychometrics.

Instrument

Test Type: Attitudinal Self-Report Questionnaire

Format: 10 dichotomous items (Yes/No response options) structured into two subscales.

Language Available: English (Primary validation language)

Population Group: Students and adolescents

Age Group: School-age youth (typically middle school through early high school, approximately 11–16 years old).

Population Details: Used extensively in cohort studies concerning youth violence and health behaviors, such as the Multisite Violence Prevention Project.

Test Methodology: Respondents answer whether their parent tells them the listed things about fighting. Scoring involves assigning point values (Yes=0, No=1) for Aggressive Solutions items, and the reverse for Non-Aggressive Solutions items, summing the points within each subscale, and dividing by the number of items. The intended range for subscale scores is between 0 and 1.

Keywords

Parental influence, violence norms, adolescent behavior, perceived norms, fighting, conflict resolution, injury prevention.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Not provided in source documentation.

Affiliation Email addresses: Refer to institutional archives for the authors (Orpinas P, Murray N, Kelder S) at the time of publication (1999/2004).

Correspondence Address: Correspondence related to the Multisite Violence Prevention Project can be directed to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Atlanta, GA.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

Test Year: 1999 (Initial publication by Orpinas et al.). The instrument was included in the CDC Compendium in 2004.

Permissions and Fees: The instrument is generally considered to be in the public domain for research and academic use, particularly given its publication within a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) resource compendium. Researchers should cite the original Orpinas et al. (1999) paper and the CDC Compendium (2004) when utilizing the scale.

Reference’s

The original instrument is detailed in the publication: Measuring Violence-Related Attitudes, Behaviors, and Influences Among Youths: A Compendium of Assessment Tools (2004). The original PDF can be downloaded here: http://www.cdc.gov/violenceprevention/pdf/YV_Compendium.pdf

1. Orpinas P, Murray N, Kelder S. Parental influences on students’ aggressive behavior and weapon carrying. Health Education and Behavior 1999;26(6):774-787.
2. Multisite Violence Prevention Project. Description of measures: cohort-wide student survey, 2004. Available from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Atlanta, GA.

Items of the Parental Support for Fighting

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Does your parent tell you these things about fighting?

Aggressive Solutions

1. If someone hits you, hit them back.
2. If someone calls you names, hit them.
3. If someone calls you names, call them names back.
4. If someone asks you to fight, hit them first.
5. If you can’t solve the problem by talking, it is best to solve it through fighting.

Non-Aggressive Solutions

1. If someone calls you names, ignore them.
2. If someone asks you to fight, you should try to talk your way out of a fight.
3. You should think the problem through, calm yourself, and then talk the problem out with your friend.
4. If another student asks you to fight, you should tell a teacher or someone older.
5. No matter what, fighting is not good; there are other ways to solve problems.