Child–parent covariation on the processing of angry facial stimuli predicts children’s reactive aggression.

Psychology of Violence, Nov 03, 2025, No Pagination Specified; doi:10.1037/vio0000659

Objective: Attention allocation to angry facial stimuli has been described as an early marker of aggressive behavior in children. While parental practices are known to moderate associations between child neurocognitive reactivity and aggression, little is known about whether similarities or mismatches in parent–child gaze to anger cues contribute to aggression. Guided by the biosocial model of development, this study examined main and interactive effects of children’s callous–unemotional traits, social affiliation, and gaze to angry facial features, alongside parental environmental sensitivity and gaze, in relation to proactive and reactive aggression. Method: Participants were 124 parent–child dyads who completed questionnaires and an eye-tracking task measuring dwell time on angry facial regions. Regression analyses tested main and interaction effects of parent and child characteristics on aggression subtypes. Results: A significant interaction emerged between parent and child gaze to angry eyes. When parental attention was low, longer child dwell time predicted elevated reactive aggression, suggesting that mismatched threat vigilance may exacerbate reactivity. In addition, proactive and reactive aggression were higher among children with low social affiliation when parents showed heightened sensory processing sensitivity. Conclusions: Findings emphasize that parent–child misalignments in emotional reactivity and affiliative traits constitute developmental risk factors for aggression. These results support models that consider dyadic attentional and temperamental configurations and highlight new directions for family-based prevention and intervention strategies aimed at reducing aggressive behavior. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)