An emotion-focused extension of coercion theory: Emerging evidence and conceptualizations for parental experienced emotion as a mechanism of reinforcement in coercive parent–child interactions

According  to  coercion  theory  (Patterson,  1982,  2016),  children's  aggression  is  developed  and  maintained  through  transactional  processes  between  parents  and  their children that unfold over time. The theory provides a model of the behavioral contingencies that explain how parents and children mutually “train” each other to behave in ways that over time increase the likelihood of children's aggression and decrease parents' control over this aggression. Although the theory characterizes the  interactions  that  often  lead  to  dysfunctional  family  processes  and  children's  aggression, its focus on observable, interpersonal negativity has resulted in research that largely overlooks intraindividual phenomena, such as the internal experiences that  drive  parents'  expressed  negativity.  In  this  article,  I  present  empirical  and  theoretical  work  that  supports  an  expanded  focus  of  coercion  theory  to  include  emotion as an internal mechanism of reinforcement that facilitates and maintains coercive family processes and children's antisocial development.