Dodge K A, Bates J E, Pettit G S
Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN 37203.
Science. 1990 Dec 21;250(4988):1678-83. doi: 10.1126/science.2270481.
Two questions concerning the effect of physical abuse in early childhood on the child's development of aggressive behavior are the focus of this article. The first is whether abuse per se has deleterious effects. In earlier studies, in which samples were nonrepresentative and family ecological factors (such as poverty, marital violence, and family instability) and child biological variables (such as early health problems and temperament) were ignored, findings have been ambiguous. Results from a prospective study of a representative sample of 309 children indicated that physical abuse is indeed a risk factor for later aggressive behavior even when the other ecological and biological factors are known. The second question concerns the processes by which antisocial development occurs in abused children. Abused children tended to acquire deviant patterns of processing social information, and these may mediate the development of aggressive behavior.
本文聚焦于两个有关幼儿期身体虐待对儿童攻击性行为发展影响的问题。第一个问题是虐待本身是否具有有害影响。在早期研究中，样本缺乏代表性，且忽略了家庭生态因素（如贫困、婚姻暴力和家庭不稳定）以及儿童生物学变量（如早期健康问题和气质），研究结果一直模棱两可。一项对309名儿童的代表性样本进行的前瞻性研究结果表明，即使已知其他生态和生物学因素，身体虐待确实是日后攻击性行为的一个风险因素。第二个问题涉及受虐待儿童反社会行为发展的过程。受虐待儿童往往会形成异常的社会信息处理模式，而这些模式可能会介导攻击性行为的发展。
