University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States.
University of Michigan, United States.
Child Abuse Negl. 2021 Jul;117:105089. doi: 10.1016/j.chiabu.2021.105089. Epub 2021 May 3.
Understanding factors that contribute to parents' use of physical and psychological parent-child aggression (PCA) is critical in efforts to mitigate child maltreatment.
Extant research has not adequately distinguished risk factors that may differ by race.
The present study investigated potential racial differences in worry, approval of PCA, justification for PCA use, negative child intent attributions, and discrimination experiences in relation to child abuse risk and physical and psychological PCA use in a sample of 292 Black (44.9 %) and White mothers.
As hypothesized, compared to White mothers, Black mothers demonstrated higher child abuse risk and reported more PCA use, stronger approval for using PCA, and more justification of their PCA to teach children obedience. Although Black mothers reported more discipline-relevant worry as well as more experience of discrimination, White mothers' lower trait worry related to their greater approval of PCA for discipline, which indirectly related to their abuse risk. Contrary to expectations, perceptions of greater discrimination were related to White mothers' increased child abuse risk, approval of PCA, and justification for PCA because of anger and to teach obedience-findings not observed for Black mothers.
The current results underscore the need for additional research on the role of discrimination and the cultural context of parenting and highlight the importance of explicitly testing racial differences to develop more culturally informed abuse prevention approaches.
了解导致父母使用身体和心理亲子攻击（PCA）的因素对于减轻儿童虐待至关重要。
现有研究尚未充分区分可能因种族而异的风险因素。
本研究在 292 名黑（44.9%）和白母亲样本中调查了与儿童虐待风险和身体及心理 PCA 使用相关的担忧、对 PCA 的认可、PCA 使用理由、对儿童恶意意图的负面归因以及歧视经历方面的潜在种族差异。
正如假设的那样，与白人母亲相比，黑人母亲表现出更高的儿童虐待风险，并报告了更多的 PCA 使用、更强的 PCA 用于管教的认可以及更多的 PCA 合理性。尽管黑人母亲报告了更多与纪律相关的担忧以及更多的歧视经历，但白人母亲较低的特质担忧与他们对 PCA 的更大认可有关，这与他们的虐待风险间接相关。与预期相反，更大的歧视感与白人母亲增加的儿童虐待风险、对 PCA 的认可以及由于愤怒而使用 PCA 进行管教的合理性有关，而这些发现并未在黑人母亲中观察到。
目前的结果强调了需要进一步研究歧视的作用以及育儿的文化背景，并强调了明确测试种族差异以制定更具文化意识的虐待预防方法的重要性。
