Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 27, Issue 1, January 2003, Pages 21-45
Child Abuse & Neglect

Attributions, affect, and behavior in abuse-risk mothers: a laboratory study

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0145-2134(02)00510-0Get rights and content

Abstract

Objective: There were two main aims: first, to assess parental attributions about child behavior in abuse-risk and nonclinic parents. Second, to assess how attributions predict affective and behavioral reactions to child behavior.

Method: Internal-external attributions relating to the causes of child behavior were compared across mothers at-risk of child abuse (n=40) and mothers who reported no significant parental or child conduct or behavior problems (n=20). Mothers’ attributions about the causes of the behavior of their own child and an unfamiliar child were recorded in response to the presentation of videotaped excerpts of the behavior.

Results: Results highlighted that compared with nonclinic mothers, abuse-risk mothers had a tendency to attribute positive child behavior to more external causes and negative child behavior to more internal causes. Differences were also found between parental cognitions about clearly positive, clearly naughty, and ambiguous child behavior. In the abuse-risk group, positive child behavior predicted coercive parenting when it elicited angry feelings in the mother; ambiguous and naughty child behavior led to coercive parenting through valence ratings of “deviant” and attributions of “internality.” Analyses within the abuse-risk group showed that parental attributions are predictive of parental coerciveness for unfamiliar behavior. As behavior becomes more familiar, ratings of its valence and the affect it elicits override attributional activity.

Conclusions: Parental attributions about the causes of child behavior differ according to the valence and familiarity of that behavior, and discriminate between parents at risk for child abuse. Further, attributions are predictive of the affective and behavioral responses the parent makes to the child’s behavior for ambiguous or unfamiliar behavior. Evidence was found for the validity of using videotaped stimuli of the behavior of known and unknown children as a method of assessing parental attributions.

Résumé

Objectif: L’étude avait deux buts principaux: d’abord, d’évaluer comment deux groupes de parents conçoivent le comportement de l’enfant: les parents qui présentent des risques de maltraitance et ceux qui ne font pas partie d’un groupe clinique; et deuxièmement, d’évaluer comment cette conception des parents prédit leurs réactions parentales affectives et leurs comportements face au comportement infantile.

Méthode: On a comparé 40 mères présentant des risques de maltraitance et 20 mères qui n’ont signalé aucune difficulté au niveau de leur comportement ou celui de leur enfant, à savoir comment ces deux groupes percevaient les facteurs internes et externes qui sous-tendent le comportement de leur enfant ainsi que le comportement d’un enfant qui leur était étranger. Pour ce faire, les mères ont assisté à des présentations audio-visuelles illustrant des comportements infantiles.

Résultats: Les mères à risque de maltraitance sont plus portées que le deuxième groupe de mères à s’expliquer les comportements positifs des enfants au moyen de facteurs externes, tandis que des facteurs internes seraient selon elles, à la base de comportements négatifs. On a aussi remarqué des différences cognitives dans la façon dont les deux groupes de mères percevaient les comportements clairement positifs, ceux qui étaient clairement négatifs et ceux qui étaient ambigus. Dans le groupe de mères à risque de maltraitance, les comportements positifs des enfants prédisent une approche parentale coercitive lorsque ces comportements provoquent des sentiments hostiles chez la mère; lorsque les comportements sont de nature ambiguë ou négative, ils provoquent des approches parentales coercitives qu’on a cotées “délinquantes” et axées sur des attributions internes. Une analyse du groupe de mères à risque démontre que dans le cas où le comportement leur est inconnu, la façon dont les mères attribuent le comportement prédit une approche parentale coercitive.

Conclusions: Comment les parents attribuent les causes des comportements d’enfants varie selon que ce comportement est connu des parents; ces attributions servent à faire ressortir les différences parmi les parents qui sont à risque de maltraiter leur enfant. De plus, dans le cas où le comportement de l’enfant est ambigu ou n’est pas connu des parents, la façon dont les parents s’expliquent le comportement infantile peut prédire leurs réactions affectives et leurs propres comportements. Les auteurs considèrent que le recours à des présentations audio-visuelles qui illustrent les comportements d’enfants étrangers et d’enfants connus des parents, est un moyen valable d’évaluer les attributions des parents vis-à-vis des enfants.

Resumen

Objetivo: Evaluar las atribuciones parentales acerca de la conducta del niño en una muestra no clı́nica de padres con riesgo de maltrato y evaluar cómo las atribuciones predicen las reacciones afectivas y conductuales al comportamiento infantil.

Método: Se comparan las atribuciones internas y externas relacionadas con las causas de la conducta infantil en una muestra de madres en riesgo de maltrato infantil (n=40) y en madres que notifican que no presentan problemas de conducta infantil significativos (n=20). Las atribuciones de las madres acerca de las causas de la conducta de su propio niño y de otro niño fueron recogidas en respuesta a la presentación de una grabación de un extracto de ciertas conductas.

Resultados: Los resultados señalan que las madres en riesgo de maltrato, en comparación con la muestra no clı́nica, tienen una tendencia a atribuir la conducta positiva del niño a causas más externas y la conducta negativa a causas más internas. También se observaron diferencias entre ambos grupos en las cogniciones parentales acerca de conductas infantiles claramente positivas, negativas y ambiguas. En el grupo de riesgo de maltrato, las conductas positivas predijeron conductas parentales coercitivas cuando elicitan sentimientos de rabia. Las conductas ambiguas y negativas llevan a conductas parentales coercitivas a través del hecho de ser consideradas como desviadas y ser atribuidas a causas internas. Los análisis internos del grupo de riesgo de maltrato muestran que las atribuciones parentales son predictivas de conductas coercitivas con respecto a comportamientos no familiares. A medida que la conducta es más familiar, las puntuaciones sobre su valencia y sobre el afecto que provocan invalidan la actividad atribucional.

Conclusiones: Las atribuciones parentales acerca de las causas de la conducta infantil difieren en relación con la valencia y la familiaridad de esa conducta y discriminan entre padres en riesgo de maltrato. Además, las atribuciones son predictivas de las respuestas afectivas y comportamentales que los padres dan al comportamiento no familiar o ambiguo del niño/a. Se observan evidencias sobre la validez de utilizar estı́mulos grabados en video de la conducta de niños conocidos y no conocidos como un método de evaluar las atribuciones parentales.

Section snippets

Participants

Participants were 60 mother-child dyads. Mothers had a mean age of 28.95 years (range 19–39 years) and their 36 male and 24 female child participants had a mean age of 3.3 years (range 2–6 years). The ABUSE-RISK group included 40 mothers selected on the basis of risk of child abuse and referral for professional assistance in the management of oppositional behavior of the child participant. The NONCLINIC group included 20 mother/child dyads in which there were no significant current or past

Results

Table 1 shows group means for the CAPI-abuse factor and CBCL measures. The percentage of parents above the clinical cutoff scores for each were: CAPI: ABUSE-RISK (53%), NONCLINIC (0%); CBCL externalizing and internalizing scores: ABUSE-RISK (90 and 67%), NONCLINIC (0 and 0%).

Discussion

The general aims of this study were to examine parent attributions of child behavior hypothesized to be characteristic of abuse risk. First, abuse-risk mothers were compared to a nonclinic sample. To examine parental behavior and cognition with their own child, direct observations of parent-child interactions were conducted and followed by structured interviews with mothers to tap their perceptions of those interactions. Correlations showed that parents and independent observers agreed at

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