Community environment and attitude toward authority: relations with quality of family relationships and aggression toward peers in adolescents

Abstract

The present study explores the relations between the perception of the community environment and adolescents' attitude towards figures of authority (police and teachers) and  social rules, subjective well-being, and a current behavior problem like peer aggression in the school setting. The quality of family relationships as an antecedent of community and attitudinal factors is also considered. In order to test these multiple relations, we used a sample of 554 adolescents of both sexes, aged between 12 and 16 years. Data were collected in two waves with a 6-month interval and were analyzed by means of structural equation models, including a multigroup analysis by sex. The results obtained indicate that positive family relations are related to a positive perception of the community environment and also to positive attitudes towards authority and towards social rules. These factors act as protectors from the involvement in aggressive behaviors towards peers in the school setting and they also promote subjective well-being. The resulting model is equivalent for boys and girls.