Does accessibility of positive and negative schema vary by child physical abuse risk?☆
Introduction
The social information processing (SIP) model of child physical abuse (CPA) posits that the manner in which at-risk and abusive parents process information during parent–child interactions increases their risk of engaging in abusive behaviors (Milner, 1993, Milner, 2000, Milner, 2003). Among the various components of the SIP model, attributions of hostile intent have received considerable support as a cognitive factor that may help explain the occurrence of parental aggression (e.g., Azar, 1986, Bauer and Twentyman, 1985, Laurence and Twentyman, 1983, Montes et al., 2001, Springer, 2001, Valle, 1999, Mammen et al., 2002). To the extent that attributions of hostile intent play a causal role in parent to child aggression, then research examining the mechanisms that lead some parents to more frequently attribute hostile intent to their children is needed.
Studies in the general literature on aggression and information processing suggest that the roots of hostile attributional biases may lie in one or more of the basic components of information processing (e.g., perceptions, interpretations, information integration). For example, research in the general literature on aggression indicates that aggression-prone individuals have perceptual biases that favor aggression-relevant stimuli (Bargh and Pratto, 1986, Bargh and Thein, 1985). Further, highly accessible hostility-related schema have been shown to increase hostile interpretations of others (Bargh and Pietromonaco, 1982, Farc et al., 2008, Srull and Wyer, 1979, Srull and Wyer, 1980) and/or increase aggressive behavior (Carver, Ganellen, Froming, & Chambers, 1983).
Studies examining encoding patterns associated with aggression, including CPA risk, have found that aggressive individuals display a greater tendency to encode ambiguous information in hostile terms, as well as a relative lack of encoding in semantically-related (nonhostile) terms. Interestingly, the largest difference between aggressive and nonaggressive individuals appears to be in the amount of information recalled to semantic (nonhostile) cues, such that aggressive, compared to nonaggressive, participants recall significantly less information to semantic cues (Zelli, Huesmann, & Cervone, 1995). Similarly, Crouch et al. (2010) found that high CPA risk parents spontaneously encoded information related to ambiguous caregiving contexts in less positive terms. More specifically, Crouch et al. found that although total recall for hostile cues did not differ by CPA risk status; high, compared to low, CPA risk parents obtained significantly lower recall scores to positive (nonhostile) cues.
A number of questions emerge from the studies that have examined the role of hostility-related schema in CPA risk. Is the tendency to arrive at more hostile judgments of child stimuli (Farc et al., 2008) driven by both greater accessibility of hostility-related schema and the relative inaccessibility of alternative (nonhostile) schema (Crouch et al., 2010, Zelli et al., 1995)? Further, is the differential accessibility of hostile and nonhostile schema apparent only when information is ambiguous or is it also apparent when stimuli are clearly negative or clearly positive? To advance our understanding in this area, the present study was designed to assess relative accessibility of positive and negative words following presentation of faces that were positive, ambiguous, or negatively valenced with regard to emotional expression.
Another gap in the literature pertains to the question of whether differences in schema accessibility between high and low CPA risk parents are apparent for both child and adult stimuli. Zelli et al. (1995) found encoding differences between aggressive and nonaggressive respondents using vignettes that depicted characters in adult roles (e.g., policeman, secretary, etc.); however it is not clear whether these differences generalize to high versus low CPA risk parents. Crouch et al. (2010) found encoding differences between high and low CPA risk parents for sentences that depicted children behaving in an ambiguous fashion; however, differences in encoding for adult stimuli were not examined. Thus, it remains unclear whether hypothesized social information processing differences between high and low CPA risk parents are evident for adult as well as child stimuli.
Indeed, it seems probable that high CPA risk parents might evince problems in social information processing that are general in nature, impacting their ability to relate to their children as well as impairing their ability to sustain positive adult relationships. Supporting this contention are data that indicate that high CPA risk parents report more problems with family/others and more feelings of loneliness (Milner, 1986). Further, high CPA risk parents report significantly fewer relationships from which they can draw support (e.g., fewer people to help them relax when tense or to console them when very upset; Crouch, Milner, & Thomsen, 2001; see also McCurdy, 1995, Whissell et al., 1990, Zelenko et al., 2001).
Difficulties cultivating supportive relationships with adults may render high CPA risk parents less effective in coping with the stresses of parenting, and thus increase their CPA risk (for a stress and coping model of child maltreatment, see Hillson & Kuiper, 1994). Indeed, popular approaches to reducing risk of CPA include providing support (typically in the form of a home visitor or parent mentor) to high-risk parents and/or attempting to increase the parents’ connections to supportive others (Thompson, 1995). What remains unclear is why high CPA risk parents have difficulties in adult relationships and whether social information processing issues play a role in their difficulties in both child and adult relationships.
Section snippets
Study overview
This study was designed to advance our understanding of differences in schema accessibility in high and low CPA risk parents. The study design involved using a picture priming technique (modeled after that used by Fazio (1995) in his assessment of automatic attitude activation) in conjunction with a lexical decision making task to discern whether patterns of schema activation varied by type of face (child versus adult) and/or affective valence of faces (i.e., negative/ambiguous/positive) for
Participants
To recruit parents for the study, informational flyers were distributed through local agencies (e.g., daycares, churches, social service agencies). The informational flyers stated that parents would be asked to “memorize pictures of faces, complete a word task, and fill out a questionnaire,” which would take approximately 30 min and for which participants would receive $25. In an attempt to obtain an adequate number of high-risk participants, we targeted our recruitment by distributing flyers in
Response latency analyses
Results of the ANCOVA revealed that the covariate, age, was not significantly associated with response latencies (p > .05). Of the interactions involving age, only the face valence by age interaction was significant, F(2, 128) = 3.43, p < .05, with longer latencies obtained by older respondents following negative (but not ambiguous or positive) faces.
The summary table for the ANCOVA is presented in Table 2. For the sake of brevity, the effects involving the covariate (described above) are not
Discussion
Based on the SIP model of CPA and existing empirical findings, it was predicted that high CPA risk parents would evince faster responses to negative words following ambiguous and negative faces. The present study failed to provide support for this hypothesis. Further, it was expected that high CPA risk parents would respond slower to positive words following positive, ambiguous, and negative faces and the present findings provided only limited support for this prediction. More specifically,
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The social information processing model in child physical abuse and neglect: A meta-analytic review
2020, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :Research conducted with high-risk of abuse and abusive parents has been showing that these parents are more likely to hold more inaccurate and biased preexisting cognitive schemata. For example, this research has shown that these parents value physical punishment as a disciplinary technique (e.g., Ateah & Durrant, 2005; Rodriguez, 2018; Wang, Wang, & Xing, 2018), hold unrealistic expectations about child development (e.g., Azar & Rohrbeck, 1986; Haskett, Scott, Willoughby, Ahern, & Nears, 2006; McElroy & Rodriguez, 2008), have negative implicit attitudes towards children (e.g., Risser, Skowronski, & Crouch, 2011), present higher accessibility of negative schemata (e.g., Crouch et al., 2012, Crouch, Risser et al., 2010; Hiraoka et al., 2014; Milner et al., 2011), show an external locus of control (e.g., Rodriguez, 2010; Rodriguez & Richardson, 2007), are less empathic (e.g., Francis & Wolfe, 2008; Pérez-Albéniz & De Paúl, 2003; Pérez-Albéniz & De Paúl, 2004), and present more negative affect (e.g., Bradley & Peters, 1991; Dadds, Mullins, McAllister, & Atkinson, 2003; Dopke, Lundahl, Dunsterville, & Lovejoy, 2003; Pérez-Albéniz & De Paúl, 2006). Surprisingly, much less attention has been given to neglectful parents.
Parents’ perception of child behavior, parenting stress, and child abuse potential: Individual and partner influences
2018, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :Inaccurate perceptions, biased interpretations, failures in integrating information or to adequately monitor one’s own disciplinary action may increase the likelihood of physical abuse. Consistent with the SIP model (2000, Milner, 1993), existing evidence suggests that parents’ cognitions such as perception of child behavior, attributions, and expectations are significant predictors of child physical abuse potential (e.g., Crouch et al., 2010; Dadds, Mullens, McAllister, & Atkinson, 2003; de Paúl, Asla, Pérez-Albéniz, & De Cádiz, 2006; Haskett, Scott, Grant, Ward, & Robinson, 2003; McElroy & Rodriguez, 2008; Rodriguez, 2018). For instance, research has shown that the abusive or at-risk parents tend to attribute negative child behavior to more internal causes (Dadds et al., 2003), to interpret information in more hostile way (Farc, Crouch, Skowronski, & Milner, 2008), and to rate their children’s behaviors as more stressful (Dopke & Milner, 2000), than non-clinic or low-risk parents.
Implicit measures of child abuse and neglect: A systematic review
2016, Aggression and Violent BehaviorCitation Excerpt :To explain the absence of significant differences between parent risk groups, the authors suggested that high-risk parents might have deficits in attentional control that may influence their susceptibility to incongruent prime-target trials. Therefore they proposed that alternative methods should be used to solve the problem of the incongruent stimuli namely, changing the tasks to requiring positive/negative judgments and using only neutral picture primes or blocking trials by affect type (Crouch, Risser et al., 2010; Risser et al., 2011). An important aspect taken into account by Farc et al. (2008) was the control of the participants' awareness, contrary to Risser et al. (2011).
Reading between the lines: Implicit assessment of the association of parental attributions and empathy with abuse risk
2012, Child Abuse and NeglectCitation Excerpt :More recently, subliminal priming with photos has been used to study implicit parental attitudes of hostility, where abuse risk parents rated ambiguous child pictures as more hostile relative to low-risk parents (Farc, Crouch, Skowronski, & Milner, 2008), although higher abuse risk parents did not evidence more negative attitudes toward children (Risser et al., 2011). Higher abuse risk parents have greater difficulty processing either positive or negative stimuli when it is incongruent with a subliminal prime rather than simply evidencing a bias toward negative stimuli only (Crouch et al., 2010). This recent line of research highlights the need to clarify some of the implicit cognitive processing occurring in parents.
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This research was supported by Grant #CE000654 from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.