McCarthy Randy J, Crouch Julie L, Skowronski John J, Milner Joel S, Hiraoka Regina, Rutledge Ericka, Jenkins Jade
Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL, USA.
Child Abuse Negl. 2013 Dec;37(12):1142-51. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2013.05.003. Epub 2013 Jun 19.
The present study examined whether parents at high-risk for child physical abuse (CPA) differed from low-risk parents in their tendency to infer positive traits and negative traits from children's behaviors. The final sample consisted of 58 (25 low CPA risk and 33 high CPA risk) parents. Parents completed a false-recognition task, which involved viewing behavior descriptions paired with child photographs. Half of the behavior descriptions vaguely/strongly implied a trait and half of the implied traits were positive/negative. The contributions of automatic processes and controlled processes to task performance were examined using process dissociation procedures. Low CPA risk parents were significantly less likely to indicate negative traits were present in behavioral descriptions of children when negative traits were vaguely (compared to strongly) implied. In contrast, high CPA risk parents were equally likely to indicate negative traits were present regardless of whether the traits were vaguely or strongly implied. For low (but not high) CPA risk parents, automatic processes contributed significantly less to task performance when negative traits were vaguely implied compared to when the same traits were strongly implied. Given that parenting involves negotiating a seemingly endless series of ambiguous behaviors as children grow and develop, the capacity to refrain from automatically attributing negative traits to children when they exhibit vaguely negative behaviors may serve an important function in reducing risk of aggressive parenting behavior.
本研究考察了有儿童身体虐待（CPA）高风险的父母与低风险父母在从孩子行为中推断积极特质和消极特质的倾向上是否存在差异。最终样本包括58名父母（25名低CPA风险和33名高CPA风险）。父母们完成了一项错误识别任务，该任务包括查看与儿童照片配对的行为描述。一半的行为描述模糊/强烈暗示了一种特质，且一半暗示的特质是积极/消极的。使用过程分离程序考察了自动加工过程和控制加工过程对任务表现的贡献。当消极特质被模糊（与强烈暗示相比）暗示时，低CPA风险的父母显著不太可能指出在儿童的行为描述中存在消极特质。相比之下，高CPA风险的父母无论消极特质是被模糊还是强烈暗示，都同样有可能指出存在消极特质。对于低（而非高）CPA风险的父母，当消极特质被模糊暗示时，与相同特质被强烈暗示时相比，自动加工过程对任务表现的贡献显著更小。鉴于养育子女涉及在孩子成长和发展过程中应对一系列看似无穷无尽的模糊行为，当孩子表现出模糊的消极行为时，克制自动将消极特质归因于孩子的能力可能在降低攻击性养育行为风险方面发挥重要作用。
