Department of Psychology, The Chinese University of Hong Kong.
Clinical Psychology Unit, Institute of Psychology, Leiden University.
Psychol Trauma. 2019 Jan;11(1):64-72. doi: 10.1037/tra0000369. Epub 2018 Apr 26.
Early relational trauma has been posited to be responsible for dysfunctional self schema as negative feedback derived from abusive close others may influence the development of self-evaluation. However, the association between early relational trauma and negative self-evaluation has proven inconsistent. In addition to the evaluative aspect, early relational trauma may impact on the procedural aspect of self schema, with a difficulty in differentiating mental representations derived from others from those generated internally by the self.
To test this hypothesis, the authors adopted a source attribution paradigm tapping on the distinction between mental representations generated by the self or derived from another person in a nonclinical sample, together with scales measuring self-evaluation and early relational experiences.
The results showed that individuals with early relational trauma tended to attribute the representations externally derived as internally generated, although there were no associations between early relational trauma and self-evaluation. Importantly, early relational trauma had unique contribution to source misattribution independent from common covariates including early nonrelational trauma, parental dysfunction, general memory function, and negative affect states.
Erroneously identifying information derived from other people as self-generated may be a specific sociocognitive propensity linked to early relational trauma and may impact upon the development of self schema. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
早期的关系创伤被认为是导致自我图式功能障碍的原因，因为来自虐待性亲密他人的负面反馈可能会影响自我评估的发展。然而，早期关系创伤与负面自我评价之间的关联一直存在争议。除了评价方面，早期关系创伤可能会影响自我图式的程序方面，使个体难以区分来自他人的心理表象和自我内部产生的表象。
为了验证这一假设，作者采用了一种来源归因范式，该范式可以区分自我或他人产生的心理表象，同时还测量了自我评估和早期关系经历。
结果表明，早期关系创伤的个体倾向于将外部来源的表象归因于内部产生的表象，尽管早期关系创伤与自我评价之间没有关联。重要的是，早期关系创伤对来源错误归因有独特的贡献，这种贡献独立于常见的协变量，包括早期非关系创伤、父母功能障碍、一般记忆功能和消极情绪状态。
错误地将来自他人的信息识别为自我产生的信息，可能是与早期关系创伤相关的一种特定的社会认知倾向，并且可能会影响自我图式的发展。
