FAMILY STRUCTURES OF ASSAULTIVE ADOLESCENTS

This study compared 17 assaultive adolescents and 12 nonassaultive adolescents on a measure of family structure which assesses the family's perceptions of the authority hierarchy and the amount of closeness and distance between family members. The results demonstrated that the experimental group significantly more often perceived the presence of a reversal in the generational hierarchy of authority. The authors discuss the meaning of these results as they relate to violent teenagers and their family interactions.