Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-c47g7 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-23T05:41:27.661Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Impact of physical maltreatment on the regulation of negative affect and aggression

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 June 2014

Jessica E. Shackman  and
Seth D. Pollak
Jessica E. Shackman
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
Seth D. Pollak*
Affiliation:
University of Wisconsin–Madison
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: Seth D. Pollak, Department of Psychology and Waisman Center, 1500 Highland Avenue, University of Wisconsin–Madison, Madison, WI 53705; E-mail: spollak@wisc.edu.
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Physically maltreated children are at risk for developing externalizing behavioral problems characterized by reactive aggression. The current experiment tested the relationships between individual differences in a neural index of social information processing, histories of child maltreatment, child negative affect, and aggressive behavior. Fifty boys (17 maltreated) performed an emotion recognition task while the P3b component of the event-related potential was recorded to index attention allocation to angry faces. Children then participated in a peer-directed aggression task. Negative affect was measured by recording facial electromyography, and aggression was indexed by the feedback that children provided to a putative peer. Physically maltreated children exhibited greater negative affect and more aggressive behavior, compared to nonmaltreated children, and this relationship was mediated by children's allocation of attention to angry faces. These data suggest that physical maltreatment leads to inappropriate regulation of both negative affect and aggression, which likely place maltreated children at increased risk for the development and maintenance of externalizing behavior disorders.

Type
Regular Articles
Information
Development and Psychopathology , Volume 26 , Issue 4pt1 , November 2014 , pp. 1021 - 1033
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2014 

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Berkowitz, L. (1989). Frustration–aggression hypothesis: Examination and reformulation. Psychological Bulletin, 106, 59–73.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Cacioppo, J. T., Petty, R. E., Losch, M. E., Kim, H. S., & Fazio, R. H. (2008). Electromyographic activity over facial muscle regions can differentiate the valence and intensity of affective reactions. In Fazio, R. H. & Petty, R. E. (Eds.), Attitudes: Their structure, function and consequences (pp. 69–83). New York: Psychology Press.Google Scholar
Cappadocia, M. C., Desrocher, M., Pepler, D. J., & Schroeder, J. H. (2009). Contextualizing the neurobiology of conduct disorder in an emotion dysregulation framework. Clinical Psychology Review, 29, 506–518.Google Scholar
Cicchetti, D., & Curtis, W. J. (2005). An event-related potential study of the processing of affective facial expressions in young children who experienced maltreatment during the first year of life. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 641–677.Google Scholar
Clogg, C. C., Petkova, E., & Shihadeh, E. S. (1992). Statistical methods for analyzing collapsibility in regression models. Journal of Educational Statistics, 17, 51–74.Google Scholar
Collishaw, S., Pickles, A., Messer, J., Rutter, M., Shearer, C., & Maughan, B. (2007). Resilience to adult psychopathology following childhood maltreatment: Evidence from a community sample. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 211–229.Google Scholar
Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information-processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 74–101.Google Scholar
Crowe, S. L., & Blair, R. J. (2008). The development of antisocial behavior: What can we learn from functional neuroimaging studies? Development and Psychopathology, 20, 1145–1159.Google Scholar
Cullerton-Sen, C., Cassidy, A. R., Murray-Close, D., Cicchetti, D., Crick, N. R., & Rogosch, F. A. (2008). Childhood maltreatment and the development of relational and physical aggression: The importance of a gender-informed approach. Child Development, 79, 1736–1751.Google Scholar
Cummings, E. M., Iannotti, R. J., & Zahn-Waxler, C. (1989). Aggression between peers in early childhood: Individual continuity and developmental change. Child Development, 60, 887–895.Google Scholar
Curtis, W. J., & Cicchetti, D. (2011). Affective facial expression processing in young children who have experienced maltreatment during the first year of life: An event-related potential study. Development and Psychopathology, 23, 373–395.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Degnan, K. A., Calkins, S. D., Keane, S. P., & Hill-Soderlund, A. L. (2008). Profiles of disruptive behavior across early childhood: Contributions of frustration reactivity, physiological regulation, and maternal behavior. Child Development, 79, 1357–1376.Google Scholar
Diener, M. L., & Kim, D.-Y. (2004). Maternal and child predictors of preschool children's social competence. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 25, 3–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pepler, D. J., & Rubin, K. H. (1991). The structure and function of reactive and proactive aggression. In Pepler, D. J. & Rubin, K. H. (Eds.), The development and treatment of childhood aggression (pp. 201–218). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Pettit, G. S., Bates, J. E., & Valente, E. (1995). Social information-processing patterns partially mediate the effect of early physical abuse on later conduct problems. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 104, 632–643.Google Scholar
Dodge, K. A., Price, J. M., Bachorowski, J.-A., & Newman, J. P. (1990). Hostile attributional biases in severely aggressive adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 99, 385–392.Google Scholar
Dollard, J., Miller, N. E., Doob, L. W., Mowrer, O. H., & Sears, R. R. (1939). Frustration and aggression. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Giancola, P. R., Roth, R. M., & Parrott, D. J. (2006). The mediating role of executive functioning in the relation between difficult temperament and physical aggression. Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 28, 211–221.Google Scholar
Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Dodge, K. A., Rutter, M., Taylor, A., et al. (2005). Nature vs. nurture: Genetic vulnerabilities interact with physical maltreatment to promote conduct problems. Development and Psychopathology, 17, 67–84.Google Scholar
Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., Polo-Tomas, M., & Taylor, A. (2007). Individual, family, and neighborhood factors distinguish resilient from non-resilient maltreated children: A cumulative stressors model. Child Abuse & Neglect, 31, 231–253.Google Scholar
Jaffee, S. R., Caspi, A., Moffitt, T. E., & Taylor, A. (2004). Physical maltreatment victim to antisocial child: Evidence of an environmentally mediated process. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 113, 44–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kaufman, J., & Zigler, E. (1987). Do abused children become abusive parents? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, 186–192.Google Scholar
Keil, V., & Price, J. M. (2009). Social information-processing patterns of maltreated children in two social domains. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 30, 43–52.Google Scholar
Kosslyn, S. M., Cacioppo, J. T., Davidson, R. J., Hugdahl, K., Lovallo, W. R., Spiegel, D., et al. (2002). Bridging psychology and biology: The analysis of individuals in groups. American Psychologist, 57, 341–351.Google Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Malone, P. S., Stevens, K. I., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2006). Developmental trajectories of externalizing and internalizing behaviors: Factors underlying resilience in physically abused children. Development and Psychopathology, 18, 35–55.Google Scholar
Lansford, J. E., Miller-Johnson, S., Berlin, L. J., Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (2007). Early physical abuse and later violent delinquency: A prospective longitudinal study. Child Maltreatment, 12, 233–245.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, D. P., Fairchild, A. J., & Fritz, M. S. (2007). Mediation analysis. Annual Review of Psychology, 58, 593–614.Google Scholar
MacKinnon, D. P., Lockwood, C. M., Hoffman, J. M., West, S. G., & Sheets, V. (2002). A comparison of methods to test mediation and other intervening variable effects. Psychological Methods, 7, 83–104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Matsumoto, D., & Ekman, P. (1988). Japanese and Caucasian facial expressions of emotion (JACFEE) [Slides] . San Francisco, CA: San Francisco State University, Department of Psychology, Intercultural and Emotion Research Laboratory.Google Scholar
Maughan, A., & Cicchetti, D. (2002). Impact of child maltreatment and interadult violence on children's emotion regulation abilities and socioemotional adjustment. Child Development, 73, 1525–1542.Google Scholar
Perlman, S. B., Kalish, C. W., & Pollak, S. D. (2008). The role of maltreatment experience in children's understanding of the antecedents of emotion. Cognition & Emotion, 22, 651–670.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D. (2008). Mechanisms linking early experience and the emergence of emotions: Illustrations from the study of maltreated children. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17, 370–375.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Cicchetti, D., Klorman, R., & Brumaghim, J. T. (1997). Cognitive brain event-related potentials and emotion processing in maltreated children. Child Development, 68, 773–787.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Klorman, R., Thatcher, J. E., & Cicchetti, D. (2001). P3b reflects maltreated children's reactions to facial displays of emotion. Psychophysiology, 38, 267–274.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Messner, M., Kistler, D. J., & Cohn, J. F. (2009). Development of perceptual expertise in emotion recognition. Cognition, 110, 242–247.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., & Sinha, P. (2002). Effects of early experience on children's recognition of facial displays of emotion. Developmental Psychology, 38, 784–791.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., & Tolley-Schell, S. A. (2003). Selective attention to facial emotion in physically abused children. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 112, 323–338.Google Scholar
Pollak, S. D., Vardi, S., Putzer Bechner, A. M., & Curtin, J. J. (2005). Physically abused children's regulation of attention in response to hostility. Child Development, 76, 968–977.Google Scholar
Raine, A., Dodge, K., Loeber, R., Gatzke-Kopp, L., Lynam, D., Reynolds, C., et al. (2006). The reactive–proactive aggression questionnaire: Differential correlates of reactive and proactive aggression in adolescent boys. Aggressive Behavior, 32, 159–171.Google Scholar
Scarpa, A., Tanaka, A., & Haden, S. C. (2008). Biosocial bases of reactive and proactive aggression: The roles of community violence exposure and heart rate. Journal of Community Psychology, 36, 969–988.Google Scholar
Shackman, A. J., Fox, A. S., Oler, J. A., Shelton, S. E., Davidson, R. J., & Kalin, N. H. (2013). Neural mechanisms underlying heterogeneity in the presentation of anxious temperament. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, 6145–6150.Google Scholar
Shackman, J. E., & Pollak, S. D. (2005). Experiential influences on multimodal perception of emotion. Child Development, 76, 1116–1126.Google Scholar
Shackman, J. E., Shackman, A. J., & Pollak, S. D. (2007). Physical abuse amplifies attention to threat and increases anxiety in children. Emotion, 7, 838–852.Google Scholar
Siever, L. J. (2008). Neurobiology of aggression and violence. American Journal of Psychiatry, 165, 429–442.Google Scholar
Spielberger, C. (1988). State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory, research edition. Odessa, FL: Psychological Assessment Resources.Google Scholar
Straus, M. A., Hamby, S. L., Finkelhor, D., Moore, D. W., & Runyan, D. (1998). Identification of child maltreatment with the Parent–Child Conflict Tactics Scales: Development and psychometric data for a national sample of American parents. Child Abuse & Neglect, 22, 249–270.Google Scholar
Teisl, M., & Cicchetti, D. (2008). Physical abuse, cognitive and emotional processes, and aggressive/disruptive behavior problems. Social Development, 17, 1–23.Google Scholar
Verona, E., Patrick, C. J., & Lang, A. R. (2002). A direct assessment of the role of state and trait negative emotion in aggressive behavior. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 111, 249–258.Google Scholar
Verona, E., Reed, A. II, Curtin, J. J., & Pole, M. (2007). Gender differences in emotional and overt/covert aggressive responses to stress. Aggressive Behavior, 33, 261–271.Google Scholar
Vitiello, B., & Stoff, D. M. (1997). Subtypes of aggression and their relevance to child psychiatry. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry, 36, 307–315.Google Scholar
Yarkoni, T. (2009). Big correlations in little studies: Inflated fMRI correlations reflect low statistical power. Commentary on Vul et al. (2009). Perspectives on Psychological Science, 4, 294–298.Google Scholar