Maltreatment and Emotion Recognition Among Brazilian Adolescents

Abstract

The experience of maltreatment can impair child development, including changes in the process of emotions recognition, which may result in impairment of social interactions and behavioral disabilities. In order to measure the association between maltreatment and changes on emotion recognition among Brazilian adolescents, the Emotional Recognition Test on Human Faces (ERTHF) was applied to a sample of 50 adolescents who had suffered different intensities and types of abuse. The social and clinical characteristics of the participants were analyzed and, from ERTHF data, the accuracy and response time for the emotion recognition. Males were 60%, with mean age of 13 years and 3 months; 60% were living in shelters. Emotion recognition changes were associated with intensity and types of maltreatment. Physical neglect (48%) was associated with changes in neutral and negative emotions recognition. Emotional neglect (48%) and emotional abuse (46%) were associated with changes in both positive and negative emotions recognition. Physical abuse (38%) was associated with changes in positive emotion recognition only. False recognition of anger was the most common outcome of maltreatment, being associated with physical neglect (p = 0.015) and emotional neglect (p = 0.047). Our results point out to the need to add emotional and facial recognition's rehabilitation interventions to better attend the specific demands of maltreated children and to increase the chances of social and family reintegration.

Childhood emotional neglect predicts empathic accuracy in social inclusion and exclusion contexts

“…Childhood emotional neglect, characterized by emotional unresponsiveness, unavailability, and limited emotional interactions between parent and child, impairs empathic processing (Ardizzi et al, 2016; Locher et al, 2014; Marta et al, 2018; Russo et al, 2015). The current study was consistent with previous studies that show that childhood emotional neglect dampens empathic accuracy for positive emotion.…”

“…To date, only a few empirical studies have investigated the relationship between childhood emotional neglect and empathic accuracy. These studies found that emotional neglect damaged people's ability to recognize angry and happy emotional faces (Marta et al, 2018; Russo et al, 2015). However, existing work usually presents emotional pictures as stimuli to induce empathy, such as the facial expressions (English et al, 2018; Marta et al, 2018; Russo et al, 2015) or the eyes (Baroncohen et al, 2001).…”

“…These studies found that emotional neglect damaged people's ability to recognize angry and happy emotional faces (Marta et al, 2018; Russo et al, 2015). However, existing work usually presents emotional pictures as stimuli to induce empathy, such as the facial expressions (English et al, 2018; Marta et al, 2018; Russo et al, 2015) or the eyes (Baroncohen et al, 2001). Notably, empathic accuracy is highly dependent on the specific contexts with abundant information (J. Zhou et al, 2008).…”

“…Another study found that high‐avoidance individuals displayed low accuracy in inferring their partners' positive emotions during a conversation about love (Maxwell, 2012). Moreover, emotional neglect was found to be associated with low accuracy when identifying faces with positive emotions (Marta et al, 2018; Young & Widom, 2014). Therefore, the current study speculated that a history of childhood emotional neglect would decrease empathic accuracy toward those involved in a social inclusion context.…”

“…Since empathy is defined as the ability to understand the emotions of others and to share others' emotional states, people with high level of empathy can share the positive emotions of others who are involved in social inclusion contexts. However, previous studies have found that individuals with a history of childhood emotional neglect showed impaired empathic processing (Ardizzi et al, 2016;Locher et al, 2014;Marta et al, 2018;Russo et al, 2015) and developed a model of avoid attachment (Lassri et al, 2016;Waldinger et al, 2006), which is features disregarding positive cues to keep emotional distance from others (Spielmann et al, 2013;Vrticka et al, 2008). Another study found that high-avoidance individuals displayed low accuracy in inferring their partners' positive emotions during a conversation about love (Maxwell, 2012).…”