Relationships of child exposure to domestic violence with bullying, silencing the self behaviors, resilience and self-efficacy: Moderating roles of stress coping strategies and friendship quality

Children have been exposed to domestic violence all over the world and the number of children being victimized continues to increase. Previous studies investigated the associations of child exposure to domestic violence (CEDV) with externalizing and internalizing behaviors. However, to our knowledge, no studies up to now has examined the effects of CEDV on externalizing and internalizing symptoms as well as on resilience in a comprehensive study and moderating processes involved in these relationships were ignored. In order to fill this void, the present study aimed to investigate the relationships of CEDV with (1) bullying, (2) silencing the self behaviors (STS), (3) resilience and (4) self efficacy within the frameworks of Social Learning Theory, Attachment Theory, and Silencing the Self Theory. In addition, moderating effects of friendship quality and stress-coping strategies in the relationships of CEDV with bullying, STS, resilience and self-efficacy were examined. Data was collected from 569 high school students whose ages ranged between 14 and 17. The results showed that, CEDV as well as the subdimensions of CEDV were positively correlated with bullying and STS and they were negatively correlated with resilience, overall self-efficacy, and with the subdimensions of academic and emotional self-efficacy. In addition, the results of the moderation analyses showed that, optimistic style and seeking social support moderated the relationship between CEDV and resilience. Also, self-confident style, seeking social support and optimistic style moderated the associations between CEDV and self-efficacy. Finally, friendship quality moderated the relationship between CEDV and self-efficacy. These results suggest that moderating variables can provide buffering effects that may weaken the negative effects of CEDV on adolescents. Findings are discussed in terms of theoretical and practical contributions as well as directions for future research.