Social Trust and Reciprocity Among Adolescent Girls Exposed to Interpersonal Violence

Abstract

Trauma research has traditionally focused on altered emotion regulation and its role in psychopathology, whereas mechanisms of social behavior remain comparatively unexplored, particularly among adolescents. It has been previously reported that adolescents with histories of interpersonal violence (IV) demonstrate disrupted social learning, and the degree to which they are impaired during social interactions requiring trustful behaviors may be associated with their levels of anxiety. In the present study, 52 adolescent females ( n = 26 control; n = 26 IV-exposed) between ages of 11 and 17 completed a multi-round adaptation of the Trust Game in which they interacted with a confederate peer run by a computer program, alternating between the roles of investor and investee. The task was designed to operationalize the social behaviors of trust and trust reciprocity, where the magnitude of the participants’ monetary investment in the confederate during the investor role represented trust while the proportion of investment returned to the confederate in the investee role represented trust reciprocity. IV-exposed and control participants did not differ in trust (i.e., as investors); however, IV-exposed participants without anxiety diagnoses demonstrated lower trust than those with anxiety diagnoses. For trust reciprocity (i.e., as investees), there were again no differences between IV-exposed participants and controls; however, IV-exposed participants with anxiety diagnoses had increased trust reciprocity compared with both other groups. Similarly, caregiver-reported anxiety symptoms were associated with trust reciprocity behaviors among the IV-exposed adolescents. Findings suggest that IV exposure and associated anxiety impacts adolescents’ trust behaviors, demonstrating potential mechanisms for maladaptive social behavior among trauma-exposed youth.

Childhood maltreatment is associated with distrust and negatively biased emotion processing

“…This finding is in line with previous findings on higher self-reported levels of distrust in individuals with CM of varying age groups [14][15][16][17]. It contrasts a study that found no difference between girls with and without a history of physical or sexual abuse in the trust game [18]. It is possible that this discrepancy reflects the usefulness of assessing CM continuously rather than using between-groups approaches that set somewhat arbitrary thresholds of presence vs. absence of CM.…”

“…Lower trust is indicated by smaller monetary contributions or investments in the interaction partner (i.e., expecting that one's contribution will not be repaid and that one's trust will be broken). One study found that girls with and without a history of physical or sexual abuse showed similar monetary contributions in the trust game [18]. Contrasting this, adolescent girls with CM showed a lower ability to learn which individuals are trustworthy than non-exposed girls in the trust game.…”

The development of personality—From metatraits to facets—Across adolescence and into adulthood in a sample of Mexican-origin youth.

“…Deviations from normative change at the facet-level could help pinpoint more specific risk factors. For instance, youth exposed to interpersonal trauma struggle with trusting others (Gobin & Freyd, 2014; Neil et al, 2022; Sellnow et al, 2021), which may be reflected in a lack of normative increase in the trust facet (vs. impacting the entire agreeableness domain). The trajectory of the trust facet could, in turn, have lasting negative impacts on adult relationships (Nielsen et al, 2018).…”

The Development of Personality – from Metatraits to Facets – across Adolescence and into Adulthood in a Sample of Mexican-origin Youth

“…Deviations from normative change at the facet-level could help pinpoint more specific risk factors. For instance, youth exposed to interpersonal trauma struggle with trusting others (Gobin & Freyd, 2014;Neil et al, 2022;Sellnow et al, 2021), which may be reflected in a lack of normative increase in the Trust facet (versus impacting the entire Agreeableness domain). The trajectory of the Trust facet could, in turn, have lasting negative impacts on adult relationships (Nielsen et al, 2018).…”