Relations between caregiver messages about conflict management, youth beliefs about fighting, and firearm carrying, in an urban low-income community.

Objective: Caregiver socialization is an important component of youth behavior development, yet little research has considered whether caregiver messages about use of fighting and nonviolent conflict resolution may be related to youths' beliefs about fighting and subsequent firearm carriage. This study examined the extent to which youths' beliefs about fighting moderated the relation between caregiver messages about how to manage conflict and youth firearm carrying.

Method: Participants were 254 youth (ages 12-17; 56% female; 88% African American) drawn from a larger community-based study of positive youth development and youth violence prevention in a low-income urban area. Binary logistic regression analyses were conducted in SPSS. Covariates included age, sex, race, and intervention community.

Results: Significant direct effects were produced between caregiver messages supporting fighting and nonviolence and youth firearm carrying, as were youth beliefs supporting reactive and instrumental aggression with firearm carrying. Though the interaction term was significant in the first two models, further examination of conditional probabilities indicated that youth beliefs were did not moderate the relations between caregiver messages and firearm carrying.

Conclusion: This study establishes preliminary relations between caregiver socialization messages and youth firearm carrying. Further longitudinal research is needed to understand caregiver-youth socialization and messages about how to manage conflict and reduce firearm behavior.