Does Accessibility of Positive and Negative Schema Vary by Child Physical Abuse Risk

• NCJ Number: 234008
• Journal: Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 34 Issue: 11 Pages: 886-895
• Author(s): Julie L. Crouch; Heather J. Risser; John J. Skowronski; Joel S. Milner; Magdalena M. Farc; Lauren M. Irwin
• Date Published: November 2010
• Length: 10 pages
• Grant Number(s): CE000654
• Sponsoring Agency: Ctr's for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United Kingdom

Annotation

Based on the social information processing (SIP) model of child physical abuse (CPA) and previous research, this study tested the hypothesis that high CPA risk parents would show faster responses in selecting hostile and aggressive words following the viewing of photographs of ambiguous and negative expressions on children's and adult's faces.

Abstract

The SIP model of child physical abuse theorizes that the manner in which at-risk and abusive parents process information during parent-child interactions increase their risk of engaging in abusive behaviors. The current study failed to provide support for the hypothesis that high CPA risk parents would show faster responses in selecting hostile and aggressive words when responding to ambiguous and hostile facial expressions. Collectively, the pattern of findings across positive and negative words suggests that high CPA parents were slower to classify both positive and negative words when they were preceded by faces that depicted the opposite emotional stimuli. Two alternative interpretations for the findings of the current study are plausible based on prior research. First, high CPS risk parents may experience greater susceptibility to interference, which slowed their response on incongruent prime-word trials; second, high CPA risk parents may have less integrated stores of positive and negative information, which required them to switch between positive and negative schema on incongruent trials, resulting in slower responses. To the extent that one or both of these interpretations is plausible, the current findings indicate the need for research that examines additional cognitive processes that may play a role in CPA risk. The child and adult faces used in the study depicted positive, ambiguous, and negative emotions. The study sample included 67 (51 low and 16 high CPA risk) parents from the general population. 2 tables, 2 figures, and 48 references