Role of Early Exposure to Domestic Violence in Display of Aggression among University Students

Received 19 Jan, 2015

Accepted 15 Oct, 2015

Published 31 Dec, 2015

Childhood experiences determine adulthood personality. Witnessing violence in domestic and community setting may lead towards developing aggressive tendencies later. The present research was aimed to explore the relationship between witnessing domestic violence during childhood and aggression among university students. A sample of 310 university students (age range = 18-30 years) was approached through purposive convenience sampling method for this research. Urdu translated versions of Social Desirability Scale (Masood, 2014), Childhood Exposure to Domestic Violence Scale (Masood, 2014), and Aggression Questionnaire (Ashraf, 2004) were administered along with a detailed demographic sheet. Results showed significant positive correlation between witnessing domestic violence and aggression. Among all the intervening risk factors, the most significant predictor for aggression was found to be community violence exposure followed by home exposure to violence. Element of social desirability was controlled keeping in mind the sensitive nature of research. Implications, limitations, and suggestions for future research were also discussed.

Children are at physical, emotional, and developmental risk due to domestic violence (Hornor, 2005). Domestic violence has been defined as a pattern of assault and coercive behavior, including physical, sexual, and psychological attack as well as economic coercion that adults or adolescents use against their intimate partners (Christopher as cited in Naz, 2005). Five major types of abuse are explained by the Americans Overseas Domestic Violence Crisis Center and the Sexual Assault Support and Help for Americans Abroad Program (2014), which include physical, emotional, sexual, social, and spiritual abuse.

Mostly women are the victims of domestic violence. No less than one in every three women has been whipped, constrained into sex, or mishandled in some other way, frequently by somebody she knows, including her spouse or an alternate male relative (United Nations Children's Fund, 2000). The most common types of violence against women in Pakistan include, but are not limited to, dowry violence; acid throwing; burning; sexual violence; harassment and indecent assault; rape; kidnapping and abduction; trafficking and forced prostitution (Parveen as cited in United States Agency for International Development [USAID], 2012). A study conducted by the Punjab Development and Social Welfare Department (2001) stated that around 42% of women accepted violence as a part of their fate, whereas, over 33% felt helpless to take a stand against it. Only 19% protested against it and only 4% took action against it. The perpetrators of such violence were mostly found to be male relatives (53%) and husbands (32%), women were also identified as perpetrators that is 13% in Pakistan (USAID, 2012).

To witness domestic violence means that a child may not be physically involved or the victim of the abuse, but physically present in the area where violent behavior or incident happens or may overhears about the violence or abuse or comes to know about it through observing its aftermath (Hester, Pearson, & Harwon, 2000). A research has highlighted that harsh behavior teaches children to consider fighting as one of the problem solving strategies and to resolve conflict through aggression, as it is taken to be the appropriate way for solution (Margolin & Gordis, 2000). The role of environmental violence on children’s behavior cannot be understood easily until one knows much about the world in which children are born. Such individuals may not only experience problems in homes, but in other settings as well (Davis & Lindsay, 2004) and display aggressive behavior with siblings, peers, and future spouses (Ostrov & Bishop, 2008); may be because they had witnessed parents as role model. Their behavioral problems including aggression, violence, and disruptive behavior grow with age (Jeevasuthan & Hatta, 2013).

Aggression can be of different types like verbal, nonverbal, physical, and passive (Blank, 2013). Among other predictors, exposure to family violence is the best predictors of aggression related outcomes (Ferguson, Miguel, Garza, & Jerabeck, 2011) in adolescents, which are not related to gender (Maxwell & Maxwell, 2003). Experiencing violence is linked to adaptability to anger, annoyance, and further negative emotions such as deficits in considering and experiencing others’ emotions (Ann & Dante, 1998), including bullying, lying, and violent behavior (Sternburg, Lamb, Gutterman, & Abbott, 2005).

Many youth experience both interparental violence and childhood abuse (Dixon, Hamilton-Giachritsis, Browne, & Ostapuik, 2007; Gover, Kaukinen, & Fox, 2008). The effects of witnessing domestic violence on children are almost comparable to child abuse. Childhood physical, emotional, and sexual abuse is directly related to the jeopardy for violent behaviors to self and others. It is a pathway to involve in conflicting and abusive romantic relationship later (Wolfe, Wekerle, Reitzel-Jaffe, & Lefebvre, 1998). In a study on men's attitude towards domestic violence in Karachi, it was found that most abusers had been victims of violence at some point in their childhood (55%) and 65% had witnessed their mothers being beaten (Fikree, Razzak, & Durocher, 2005).

According to UNICEF's study (as cited in USAID, 2012), children who have witnessed domestic violence in their childhood are at risk of becoming perpetrators of violence in adulthood often resorting to it as an acceptable means of resolving disputes and asserting themselves. It was also concluded that several stress related sociodemographic variables are also predictive of the abusive behavior that includes living in extended families, large number of children, unemployment, and poverty (Fikree et al., 2005). Abused children significantly differ from non abused children on the measure of behavioral problems; children of lower socioeconomic status are more vulnerable to abuse than children of middle and higher socioeconomic status. Similarly, large family size and less education of parents have relation to child abuse and behavioral problems of children (Hanif, 1994).

The most frequent forms of violence were physical and emotional with sexual being the least (Hussain, 1998). Women, who are abused, have low self-esteem as compared to those being not abused. A positive relationship between perceived familial maternal violence and self-value (Naz, 2005) in adolescents was found.

Within house, aggressive behaviors among partners are significantly related to poor maternal mental health which is related to more aggressive behavior in children that may be because of low maternal warmth and repetitive physical and psychological abuse of children (Holmes, 2011). Maternal depression is considered to have a role in the socioemotional and cognitive development of children as it has been found to be related to child’s inability to adjust to environment (Cummings, Keller, & Davies, 2005).

Maternal smoking reflecting the anxious mother has been associated with violent behaviors among offspring across their life time (Brennan, Grekin, & Mednick, 1999; Ernst, Moolchan, & Robinson, 2001). Change of home that is, changing the community and external environment contributes little to the development of aggression in the youth, because of changing surrounding influence social, cultural, and interpersonal processes (Forster, Grigsby, Soto, Schwartz, & Unger, 2014).

Not only witnessing violence at homes; community and media exposure also play role in developing aggression. Community violence had been linked with more violence, antisocial issues, and aggression (Buka, Stichik, Birdthistle, Felton, & Earls, 2001). Community violence exposure includes violence at school, media, and neighborhood that has an effect on aggressive behavior through imitation and the development of associated cognitions as one gets older (Guerra, Huesmann, & Spindler, 2003). Playing excessively violent sports and video games amplify aggressive affect, hostile cognition, aggressive behavior, and attitudes towards violence in sports (Anderson & Carnagey, 2009). Adolescents who play violent video game, are more hostile; get into arguments with teachers frequently, indulge in physical fights; and perform poorly in school (Gentile, Lynch, Linder, & Walsh, 2004).

Social learning theory focuses on observation in the explanation of domestic violence (Bandura, 1973). It explains causes of aggression as the learnt behavior from the environment, whether, it is home or community. According to social learning theories, when a male child witness aggression between his parents, as his father being aggressive to his mother, he perceives it as acceptable way to interact with people and in long run to deal with his future partner. While, a girl learn different role from the boy, as she witness her mother being submissive creature and suffering through his fathers’ aggression and torture, she identifies with her gender that is with her mother and it’s possible that she adopts submissive role in her own future relationship. Bandura’s (1973) concept is based on a one by one route of learning offensive behavior. This model can be simply summarized in four steps as; observe aggression, observe outcomes, practice aggression, and experience outcomes.

An important linkage is present between Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) exposure and other different types of victimization. The findings demonstrate that an inter-related network of factors influence this association that includes exposure to violence in community and media, mother’s education, and involvement in IPV. There was an impact of exposure to IPV on young adults that affects their emotional health, view of one’s self, father-child partnership, and social relations (Masood, 2013). Perry (2001) argued that early childhood is considered as a critical period which lay the foundation for the personality development as well as cognitive and emotional growth. The early life experiences of the child in the family lay the groundwork for the type of future behavior and early childhood experiences have long lasting effect on the personality and behavior of adults; so individuals who witness domestic violence in their childhood have outcomes in the adulthood (Hudziak, 2008).

Present study is aimed at exploring the relationship between aggressive tendencies among the university students who had witnessed domestic violence in their homes during childhood. People who had experienced domestic violence, directly or indirectly, have immense harmful effects on their lives and development (Davis & Lindsay, 2004), like higher rates of interpersonal problems with other family members, especially with parents (Melissa, 2002). There are many researches on the impact of domestic violence in children and adolescents (Fantuzzo & Wanda, 1999; Jeevasuthan & Hatta, 2013; Ostrov & Bishop, 2008), while less researches have been conducted on young adults adult in Pakistani context (see Masood, 2013), which is the target population in present study. There are also many researches that have been conducted in Pakistan that focuses on women and married couples with reference to domestic violence (e.g., Farooqi, 2004; Fikree et al., 2005; Hussain, 1998; Masood, 2004; Naz, 2005), while few on adolescents and adults (Masood, 2014), nevertheless, none has tried to study the role of early childhood exposure to domestic violence in developing aggression among young adults as focused in present research.

A number of researches on sensitive issues had reported that social desirability may affect the authenticity of responses that is participants control information on socially sensitive issues that are negatively evaluated by the society (Ganster, Hennessey, & Luthans, 1983; Randall & Fernandes, 1991).Therefore, an element of social desirability at part of the participants was also considered as controlled variable, while studying role of witnessing domestic violence in developing aggression. This study would be helpful to ascertain the long term effects of witnessing violence on the children when they are adults in a way revealing how parental conflict have developmental affects on the children.

Hypotheses

On the basis of literature review, the following hypotheses were phrased:

1. University students who witnessed domestic violence in their homes during childhood have more aggressive tendencies.
2. Domestic violence, community violence, child abuse, and child involvement in violence are predictors of aggression among university students.

METHOD

Research Design
The present study was based oncorrelational, cross-sectional research design using a survey method for data collection, hence, having a quantitative approach.

Sample
Convenience purposive sampling was used in data collection. A sample of 310 university students from the universities of Islamabad (age range = 18-30 years,M= 21.80,SD= 1.97) was selected for this study. Sample consisted of both male and female students. Only those students were included whose both parents were alive, living together, or separated. The highest frequency of various demographic variables reported were: men (54.2%), unmarried (84.8%), belonging to nuclear family system (57.1%), and belong to middle socioeconomic status (93.2%).

Instruments
Child Exposure to Domestic Violence Scale (CEDV). To measure childhood exposure to domestic violence as witnessed by young people was assessed by CEDV developed by Edleson, Johnson, and Shin (2007) and translated by Masood (2014). The subscales included Exposure to Intimate Partner Violence at Home (10 items); Child Involvement in Home Violence (6 items);Other Risk Factors (4 items); Child Community Violence Exposure(7 items); and Other victimization (4 items). The alpha coefficient was .71 as reported by the original authors and same was reported for the translated version of questionnaire by Masood (2014). In the present study, alpha coefficient was found to be .82. It was4-point Likert scale with response categories ofnever (0), sometimes (1),often (2),and always almost (3). Scores could range between 0-99; with high score indicating a high level of exposure to violence.

Aggression Questionnaire. This questionnaire was developed by Buss and Perry (1992). The questionnaire comprised of 29 items and participants ranked statements along a 5-point continuum ranging from extremely uncharacteristic of me(1) to extremely characteristics of me(5). It was translated for Pakistani population by Ashraf (2004). The subscales included Physical Aggression (9 items);Verbal Aggression (5 items); Anger (7 items); and Hostility (8 items) with two items to be reverse scored. These four subscales were combined in two broad domains Direct Aggression (Physical and Verbal Aggression) and Indirect Aggression (Anger and Hostility) with high score showing more aggression. Alpha reliability reported by Ashraf (2004) was .75 for the total scale; however, the present study showed .82 alpha coefficient.

Social Desirability Scale-17 (SDS-17). It consisted of 16 items summed to give a total score. SDS-17 consisted of two response options as True(1) or False(0). It was translated into Urdu by Masood (2014). SDS-17 contained 6 reverse items with possible score range of 0-16 and 8 was used as the cut off score. High score on the scale showed more socially desirable behavior. Alpha coefficient for SDS-17 found in the present study was .62.

Procedure
All questionnaires were filled by the university students in the classroom and group setting. Permission was taken from the concerned heads of departments. The research material was shown to the department administration and participants in order to address any of their concern. Participants were clearly informed about the academic nature of the research then written consent was taken from the participants and questionnaires were distributed. Only those participants were given questionnaires who were willing to participate. Rating process for each questionnaire was explained. Participants were assured that their information would be kept confidential and would be used only for the research purpose and for general findings. Participants were informed about the length of the questionnaire and that they had every right to leave the questionnaires at any step if they found it emotionally challenging.

In total, 376 filled questionnaires were received out of which 66 were discarded due to response set and unsystematic marking. Different comments were made by the participant during data collection, like questionnaires are too lengthy; it requires much disclosure of personal information; it is like a mental torture; and that the questionnaires’ much focus was on fathers and were portraying them as a cruel person. These questions were handled carefully in indigenous context and it was assured that their information would be kept confidential and would be used for the research purpose only; and that the anonymity would be maintained. It was mentioned that those who felt it emotionally challenging and considered it as a mental torture had right to leave the questionnaire and if they faced any problem afterwards they should feel free to contact counseling center at the National Institute of Psychology to address their issues free of any cost. After the data collection, results were analyzed through SPSS (18.0).

RESULTS

The present research was aimed to explore the relationship between witnessing domestic violence and aggression among university students. Appropriate statistical procedures were used to analyze the data. The alpha reliability coefficients were acceptable and satisfactory as mentioned in the instrument section. Mean and Standard Deviation was computed on transformed scores for interpretation related to prevalence, otherwise rest of the analysis were done on raw scores.

The mean values of all the subscales of CEDV shows that the maximum value is obtained on the Community Exposure subscale (M = .80) and the minimum is for Other Victimization subscale (M = .20) that represent more reporting of community exposure of violence in present sample. For Risk Factor subscale has highest SD value (.43) that reporting much variability in responses and Other Victimization has lowest SD value (.24) that represent homogeneity in responses of sample, this is also evident from actual range of scores obtained from their subscales. For the Aggression subscales the mean value was highest for verbal aggression (M = 3.33) and lowest for hostility (M = 2.79).

Skewness and kurtosis for SDS-17 and Aggression and all its subscales ranges between +1 to -1 that shows normal distribution of data. For the CEDV and its subscales, all values are positive and majority is greater than 1 that shows maximum scores are low in the data and pointy distribution of data. According to Kim (2013), if sample is greater than 300 then absolute value for skewness less than 2 or an absolute value for kurtosis less than 7 can be used as normal distribution of data and parametric testing can be done on it. Therefore, the decision was taken to proceed for further analysis with normality established. Other analyses are as follows:

Correlation between Witnessing Domestic Violence and Aggression
Pearson Product Moment Correlation was used to compute the relationship among variables of the study that is witnessing domestic violence and aggression (see Table 1).

Table 1:	Correlation among Witnessing Domestic Violence, Aggression, and Their Domains (N = 310)
Note.CEDV = Child Exposure to Domestic Violence; HE = Home Exposure; INV = Involvement RFs = Risk Factors; CE = Community Exposure; OV = Other Victimization; AQ = Aggression Questionnaire; DA = Direct Aggression; PA = Physical Aggression; VA = Verbal Aggression IA = Indirect Aggression; ANG = Anger; HOS = Hostility. Bold values show inter-subscale correlations *p< .05.**p <.01

The correlation coefficients in Table 1 show that CEDV and its subscales have significant positive correlation with Aggression scale and its subscales. Thus, the first hypotheses that is, child who witness domestic violence in their childhood later develops aggressive tendencies has been confirmed. Community violence, child involvement, and other victimization are also strongly correlated with the aggression that suggests predictive role of these variables for aggression too.

Results indicate that the most significant relationship for aggression and all its subscales is with community exposure. Contrarily, two subscales of CEDV has nonsignificant relationship with the subscales of aggression that is, Risk Factors subscale has nonsignificant relationship with direct aggression (r = .08), physical aggression (r = .03), and anger (r = .06). Similarly, Other Victimization (child abuse) subscale has nonsignificant relationship with verbal aggression (r = .08) and anger (r = .09).

Moreover, highlighted portion shows inter subscale and subscale- total correlation. For CEDV positive significant inter-subscale correlation are present between all scales ranging from .16 to .64 atp< .01 level. This show construct validity of scale and shows that scale is valid measure. Similarly, for aggression inter subscale correlation is high and significant at p< .01 level, ranging from .38 to .90 that shows its construct validity (Smith, 2005).

Predictors of Aggression, Direct Aggression, and Indirect Aggression
Linear regression. It was done by Enter method to check the most significant predictors of aggression that is direct aggression, and indirect aggression among all domains of the CEDV that includes, home exposure, involvement, risk factors, community exposure, and other victimization (see Table 2).

Results of linear regression as shown in Table 2 illustrate that all subscales of CEDV are significant predictors of aggression and its two basic domains that is direct and indirect aggression. This is demonstrated by the value of R².

The value of R² explains the variance caused in dependent variable by the independent variable. This shows that the most significant predictor of aggression among all subscales is community exposure, with 17%, 14%, and 13% variance is caused by community exposure violence in aggression, direct aggression and indirect aggression, respectively. Next significant predictor for aggression is home exposure.According to results 8%, 6%, and 6% variance is caused by home exposure in aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression, respectively. The least significant predictor of aggression is risk factor domain of CEDV, for aggression it shows significant result at p< .05 with variance 2%; for direct aggression result is nonsignificant; and for indirect aggression results are significant at p < .01 with variance 6% and 3%. The value of standardized beta coefficient gives a measure of the contribution of each variable to the model in terms of standard deviation. The overall Table 2 illustrates that CEDV and its subscales play significant predicting role in aggression.

Table 2:	Linear Regression Analysis for Subscales of CEDV Predicting Aggression, Direct Aggression, and Indirect Aggression (N=310)
*p< .05.**p< .01.***p< .001

Hierarchical multiple regression. The effect of social desirability was controlled and combined predictive role of CEDV subscales for aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression was studied. Social desirability was entered in first block and all predictors of CEDV were put together in second block through Enter Method (see Table 3).

Table 3 illustrates the effect of social desirability (Model 1) and combined effect of social desirability with all subscales of CEDV on aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression (Model 2). In both of models tested, social desirability, community violence, and home exposure has the significant predictive role on aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression.

Social desirability has significant positive role in prediction for aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression and variance caused by it is 11%, 9%, and 8%, respectively.

Table 3:	Effect of Social Desirability and Domains of CEDV on Aggression, Direct Aggression, and Indirect Aggression (N = 310)
*p< .05.**p< .01.***p<.001

Change in variance caused by all predictors of CEDV is 15%, 12%, and 12% on aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression, respectively, by subtracting variance of social desirability. The most significant β-value calculated in the Model 2 among all predictors of CEDV is community exposure for aggression, direct aggression, and indirect aggression. Home exposure is significant predictor in predicting overall aggression only. Hence, analysis reveals that community exposure to domestic is the strongest predictor in aggression than home exposure in combined role.

DISCUSSION

The study was aimed at examining the role of childhood exposure to domestic violence in developing aggression in young adults. The construct validity based on inter subscale correlations of both the scales showed satisfactory and significant results in desired direction. This showed that both measures were valid to be used in the present study. This was a retrospective study that is participants had to recall the early life experiences in reference to witnessing violence in home and community that can have long lasting consequences (Hudziak, 2008; Perry, 2001). Same method was used to study the outcomes of witnessing violence in young (see Masood, 2014) and late adult by Pakistani researches (UNICEF as cited in USAID, 2012). The reliability estimates of the overall scales were found to be satisfactory.

For the first hypothesis, it was assumed that university students who witnessed domestic violence in their homes later develop aggressive personality trait has been supported by the results (see Table 1). The hypothesis was confirmed. Results showed that CEDV and its subscales were positively correlated with aggression and its domains except Risk Factor subscale. It might be because of heterogeneous nature of this subscale that it contained items that were totally different from each other, first two items were about the use of drugs and smoking by parents; third question was about the maternal anxiousness; and last was about immigration (how many times you have changed your house?). These results were consistent with the large body of literature that also found that the children who had witnessed domestic violence in their childhood are violent and aggressive in their later life (Davis & Lindsay, 2004; Maxwell & Maxwell, 2003; Ostrov & Bishop, 2008).

The correlation coefficients (see Table 1) and regression analysis (see Table 2 & 3) showed that community exposure to violence is the most significant predictor among all domains for the aggression and all forms of aggression. This was also consistent with large bodies of researches that showed that community violence is the cause of aggression in adults, as it is also pointed by the social learning theory (Bandura, 1973; Hester et al., 2000; Hornor, 2005; Masood, 2014). This might be because of the social desirability aspect that the participants felt free to respond for community exposure, while they felt hesitant to respond on the questions related to their personal life.

As it was anticipated that on sensitive issues, participants hide information, this seemed to be valid to control social desirability variable as participants may try to control information and present themselves in socially desirable way, and this is also supported by previous research (Ganster et al., 1983; Randall & Fernandes, 1991), that explained individuals have some attributions that are negatively valued by society, for example, alcohol use or abuse, and there are also which are positively valued by society, for example., being religious and disciplined, and in order to meet the societal values, individuals control undesirable information and anticipate responses according to their desirability of behavior; and they have the utmost control on the self-reported behavior (Ganster et al., 1983). Interestingly, social desirability had significant negative prediction for overall aggression, direct, and indirect aggression as well and took on much variance in predicting this relationship among all variables in combined role. This shows that participants were reluctant to give honest opinion regarding witnessing domestic violence at home and its effect on aggression. They also hide their aggressive tendencies by considering it against social norms and thinking that it is also negatively evaluated by the society. Findings on scales and subscales should be generalized with caution because of element of social desirability.

Second most significant contributor after community exposure was home violence in causing aggression and direct aggression (see Table 2). It is easy to respond that how much you have seen violence in community, in video games or in films as compare to that how much your father physically, emotionally, or sexually abuse your mother. According to David and Laura (2000), violent victimization was associated with negative social outcomes through the mediation of emotion de-regulations. Witnessing violence was linked to aggression. As according to Bandura (1973), individuals learn behavior from the experience; each behavior is outcome of learning. Young adults are aggressive that might be because of prevailing community violence in our society. Pakistani population is facing a lot of problems from the past few years; among all terrorism is the biggest problem. Children watching violence on TV and in community may experience aggression and that is growing with their age. Along with community factor, all others factors are also associated risk factors that are significantly playing their role in the development of aggression among young adults (see Table 2).

These results demonstrate that multiple violence exposure is linked with aggression in adults that suggest that there are distinct patterns of risk associated with different forms of exposure. Psychological abuse and low level of mother’s love for her children were directly related to more aggressive behavior, while partner violence exposure and physical abuse were not directly related with aggressive behavior (Holmes, 2011). However, in present study, through linear regression, all factors came up as significant predictors of aggressive tendencies but not in combined role. The least significantly correlated factor with aggression was risk factor based upon drug use or smoking of father and mother; mother’s anxiousness; and change in life. The most significant and positively correlated domain of aggression was indirect aggression as compare to direct aggression. It may be because it is safe to have internal feelings of anger and hostility than displaying aggression outwardly towards source that can bring in serious repercussions. Besides, smoking, mother’s anxiety, and general change in life is not taken as seriously than witnessing violence in home and in community or experiencing abuse. Witnessing violence may readily lead to introjections of aggressive display of behavior by others in one’s internal working model to handle the world out there. This affects cognitions through social learning that has long lasting impact in adulthood based on childhood.

LIMITATIONS AND SUGGESTIONS

As regard to limitation of the study, the few limitations of the study are discussed. It was a cross-sectional study; there are many intervening factors that can moderate the effect of witnessing violence and aggression. Individual differences exist between the participants, so generalizability is one of the issue for these results. To study the developmental effects in children, longitudinal studies are recommended. Secondly, it was a retrospective study, participants had to recollect their past memory of previous experiences that may cause problem for the true retrieval of the information or controlling information about incidents in their lives. To handle such issues, it is recommended to study current behaviors and experiences rather than past. Thirdly, convenient sampling was done to collect the data; sample was not true representative of the study. In future, random sampling is recommended. Filling questionnaire was time consuming and was targeting personal information because of which participants were hesitant to answer honestly; and many of them refused because of length of questionnaire that is why high social desirability is reflected in the present sample. Questionnaire was emotionally challenging for the participants, as it was reported by the participants also that these questionnaires are a kind of mental torture and are difficult to answer. To overcome problems, rapport building is very important and counseling services should be provided in debriefing session.

IMPLICATIONS

Witnessing violence, being aware of violence, and its effects on the adults is major implication of this research. Research was focused on the problems of young adults that how witnessing domestic violence, community violence, and other risk factors can cause psychological problem in future generation. Intervention program plans can be devised to curtail the community exposure to violence in childhood like violence in the neighborhood, educational institute, witnessing violence on media, and in video games that have long lasting effects along exposure to home violence.

This research will be helpful for parents in understanding how their children are influenced by their conflicts and develop aggressive tendencies that may hinder their future social relationships with peers, colleagues, spouse, etc. In the clinical practices, counseling, and guidance of children and adolescents, practitioners must look into the element of home exposure to domestic violence to educate parents and children to address these domestic problems timely so that future generation could grow mentally healthy. These results will be helpful for stimulating further research in this area as taking up work on domestic violence is scarce, but need immediate attention.

CONCLUSION

Study revealed that aggression is positively correlated with all the domains that are community violence, home exposure, child abuse, involvement, and other risk factors. Results indicated that among all factors, community violence is the most significant predictor of aggression followed by home exposure to violence.

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