Abusing, neglectful, and comparison mothers' responses to child-related and non-child-related stressors.

Abstract

Thirty-six mothers with a previous history of child abuse or child neglect or with no known previous history of child maltreatment participated in an experiment designed to assess reactions to a number of aversive stimuli. Both child-related and non-child-related stressful stimuli were presented, and a number of dependent variables including measures of attributional style and annoyance were employed to assess the situations! specificity of responding. Analysis of the attributional data indicate that abusing mothers consistently ascribed more malevolent intentionality to their child than the other mothers. Situation and interaction effects were also present for the attributional measure. Results from the process annoyance measures indicate that highly significant situation effects were present. In addition, the abusing mothers were more annoyed across both the social and nonsocial stressors, suggesting that a generalized pattern of hyperresponsivity exists in this group. The present results are interpreted within a recently formulated cognitivebehavioral model of child abuse.It is now generally accepted that three factors are necessary before child abuse will occur: a person with potential for inflicting abuse, a child who is seen as an appropriate target, and stressors that precipitate the action (Kempe & Heifer, 1972). Although research on all three factors is critical to understanding child abuse, to date the first two factors have received most of the attention in the child abuse literature.Numerous attempts have been made to link the potential for abuse with parental characteristics such as psychopathology (Fontana, 1973;Wasserman, 1973), a history of having been abused (Oliver & Taylor, 1971;Spinetta & Riegler, 1972), educational background (Terr, 1970), lack of appropriate disciplinary skills (Reid, Taplin, & Lorber, 1981), and unrealistic parental expectations . Investigations of The authors wish to thank Brad Davis and Dave Kruger for their assistance in data collection and analysis and John Fade and other membere of the Monroe County, New York State, Department of Social Services for their continuing help with this project. Special thanks are also given to

Risk factors in child maltreatment: A meta-analytic review of the literature

“…Spinetta (1978) n=63 Michigan Screening Profile of Parenting (Helfer, et al, 1977) .74*** Robyn & Fremouw (1996) n=18 State-Trait Anger Expression Inventory (Spielberger, 1988) .10* Bauer & Twentyman (1985) n=24…”

Child physical abuse risk moderates spontaneously inferred traits from ambiguous child behaviors

“…The behaviors used as stimuli in the present study were intended to elicit positive trait inferences (e.g., kind) or negative trait inferences (e.g., mean) about children. Further, as predicted by the SIP model of CPA, it was expected that inference formation would be especially likely to be guided by pre-existing schemata when behavioral information is ambiguous (e.g., Bauer & Twentyman, 1985; Bugental, Lewis, Lin, Lyon, & Kopeikin, 1999). Thus, some behavior descriptions used in the present study were designed to strongly imply traits, whereas other behavior descriptions only vaguely implied traits.…”

Comparing Different Types of Child Abuse and Spouse Abuse Offenders

“…If the true size of these differences is small, then at least some of the inconsistency seen in the literature can be attributed to the small samples used to study the problem, often 50 subjects or fewer (e.g., Azar et al, 1984;Bauer & Twentyman, 1985;Bousha & Twentyman, 1984;Disbrow et al, 1977;Friedrich et al, 1985;Hansen et al, 1989;Twentyman & Plotkin, 1982). Small sample size limits statistical power.…”

“…Friedrich and colleagues (1985) indicated that neglectful mothers were more hostile, impulsive, and easily aroused than physically abusive mothers, while Disbrow, Doerr, and Caulfield (1977) reported that physically abusive parents were lower in empathy and had lower self-concepts than neglectful mothers. Investigations of family processes have noted more parent-child conflict in families with physical abuse of children than in neglecting families (Martin & Walters, 1982) and physically abusive mothers have been found to attribute more malevolent intent to their children's misbehavior (Bauer & Twentyman, 1985). In terms of social connections outside the family, Disbrow and colleagues (1977) found that physically abusive parents had fewer close friends that did neglecting parents.…”