Abstract

There is considerable research on aggression in children and adolescents that highlights the relevance of parenting strategies as antecedents. However, there are few researchers that systemize the available studies on effects of the subtypes of parental control on each specific category of aggression. The present review is an attempt to integrate in the same study the updated research on the differential effects of both, behavioural and psychological control, on aggression, in general, and its types (open, relational, proactive, reactive, bullying), in particular. For this review, studies published between 2018 and 2023 that were deemed relevant to the topic were searched, coded, and classified. As a result, 28 works were identified. The results showed that greater parental psychological control seems to contribute to externalizing behaviour and more specifically to the aggression of their children, without this relation being moderated by the country of origin, nor the cultural normativity of psychological control in the country of study, nor the age of the adolescent. On the other hand, sufficient consensus has not been found in the conceptualization and measurement instruments of parental behavioural control or in the results on the associations of this type of control with the externalizing and/ or aggressive behaviour of children, evidencing that culture can act as a moderating variable. In the coming years, the authors could focus on agreeing on the concept, components and measurement instruments of parental control, especially behavioural control, considering the specificity of the different categories of aggression, and elucidating the role of gender of the parent and the adolescent in each of these specific relations.