Department of Psychology, Center for Children & Families, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, IN 46556, USA.
Child Maltreat. 2012 May;17(2):172-81. doi: 10.1177/1077559511434945. Epub 2012 Jan 27.
Among the negative sequelae of child maltreatment is increased risk for continuity of maltreatment into subsequent generations. Despite acknowledgment in the literature that the pathways toward breaking the cycle of maltreatment are likely the result of dynamic interactions of risk and protective factors across multiple ecological levels, few studies have followed high-risk samples of maltreated and nonmaltreated parents over time to evaluate such processes. In the current investigation, exposure to community violence and authoritarian parenting attitudes were evaluated as predictors of the intergenerational continuity of abuse, and the moderating effect of African American race was examined. The sample included 70 mothers and their 18-year-old children, who have been followed longitudinally since the third trimester of the adolescent mothers' pregnancy. Results revealed that among mothers with a child abuse history, higher exposure to community violence and lower authoritarian parenting attitudes were associated with increased risk for intergenerational continuity of abuse. The relation of authoritarian parenting attitudes to intergenerational continuity was moderated by race; the protective effects of authoritarian parenting were limited to the African American families only. The salience of multiple ecological levels in interrupting the intergenerational continuity of child abuse is discussed, and implications for preventive programs are highlighted.
儿童虐待的负面后果之一是虐待行为在后代中持续存在的风险增加。尽管文献中承认，打破虐待循环的途径可能是多个生态层面的风险和保护因素的动态相互作用的结果，但很少有研究对受过虐待和未受虐待的高风险父母样本进行跟踪，以评估这些过程。在当前的研究中，评估了社区暴力和专制育儿态度的暴露情况，作为虐待代际连续性的预测因素，并检验了非裔美国人种族的调节作用。该样本包括 70 名母亲及其 18 岁的孩子，这些母亲自青少年怀孕的第三个三个月以来一直进行纵向跟踪。结果表明，在有虐待儿童史的母亲中，较高的社区暴力暴露和较低的专制育儿态度与代际虐待连续性的风险增加有关。专制育儿态度与代际连续性的关系受到种族的调节；专制育儿的保护作用仅限于非裔美国家庭。讨论了在中断虐待代际连续性方面多个生态层面的重要性，并强调了预防计划的意义。
