Elsevier

Child Abuse & Neglect

Volume 38, Issue 8, August 2014, Pages 1369-1381
Child Abuse & Neglect

Long-term effects of child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in adulthood☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.03.008Get rights and content

Abstract

To determine whether child maltreatment has a long-term impact on emotion processing abilities in adulthood and whether IQ, psychopathology, or psychopathy mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotion processing in adulthood. Using a prospective cohort design, children (ages 0–11) with documented cases of abuse and neglect during 1967–1971 were matched with non-maltreated children and followed up into adulthood. Potential mediators (IQ, Post-Traumatic Stress [PTSD], Generalized Anxiety [GAD], Dysthymia, and Major Depressive [MDD] Disorders, and psychopathy) were assessed in young adulthood with standardized assessment techniques. In middle adulthood (Mage = 47), the International Affective Picture System was used to measure emotion processing. Structural equation modeling was used to test mediation models. Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment were less accurate in emotion processing overall and in processing positive and neutral pictures than matched controls. Childhood physical abuse predicted less accuracy in neutral pictures and childhood sexual abuse and neglect predicted less accuracy in recognizing positive pictures. MDD, GAD, and IQ predicted overall picture recognition accuracy. However, of the mediators examined, only IQ acted to mediate the relationship between child maltreatment and emotion processing deficits. Although research has focused on emotion processing in maltreated children, these new findings show an impact child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in middle adulthood. Research and interventions aimed at improving emotional processing deficiencies in abused and neglected children should consider the role of IQ.

Section snippets

Childhood maltreatment and emotion processing

In general, child maltreatment has been found to disrupt the normal process of emotional development. First, studies of maltreating parents suggest that they show less positive emotion and more negative emotion than non-abusive parents (Bugental et al., 1990, Kavanagh et al., 1988). It is also believed that maltreating parents tend to be isolated themselves and to isolate their children from interaction with others, providing fewer nonparental models of emotional communication (Salzinger,

Potential mechanisms linking childhood maltreatment and emotion processing

If the impact of child abuse and neglect on emotion processing extends into adulthood, what might be some of mechanisms that lead to these outcomes? Research has increasingly shown that childhood abuse and neglect can result in a cascade of negative consequences across multiple domains of functioning (Gilbert et al., 2009, Widom, 2000) that might explain an increased risk for deficits in emotion processing abilities for individuals with histories of child abuse and/or neglect. Specifically,

Specific aims and hypotheses

This study has several aims. The first goal is to assess emotion processing abilities in individuals with documented histories of childhood abuse and neglect and a matched control group who have been followed up into adulthood.

Hypothesis 1

Participants with a history of childhood maltreatment will be less accurate overall in recognizing affective pictures than controls, suggesting general deficits in processing emotional cues.

The second aim is to determine whether these emotion processing deficits vary by

Overview

The data used here are from a prospective cohort design study in which abused and neglected children were matched with non-abused, non-neglected children and followed into young adulthood. Because of the matching procedure, the participants are assumed to differ only in the risk factor (i.e., having experienced childhood sexual or physical abuse or neglect). Because it is not possible to assign participants to groups randomly, the assumption of equivalency for the groups is an approximation.

Child abuse and neglect and recognition accuracy

Table 3 presents findings regarding accuracy in emotion recognition by group (abuse/neglect vs. control) and type of maltreatment (any physical abuse, any sexual abuse, and any neglect vs. control). As hypothesized, childhood abuse and neglect significantly predicted overall recognition accuracy (β = −0.11, p < .01) and this model explained 5% of the variance (R2 = .05, p < .01) indicating that individuals with a history of childhood abuse/neglect were less accurate in recognizing pictures than those

Discussion

This is the first prospective study of emotion processing accuracy in individuals with documented cases of childhood abuse and neglect who were followed up and assessed in middle adulthood. As hypothesized, these findings showed that individuals with a history of childhood abuse and/or neglect were less accurate in processing affective pictures than those without such a history. In addition, these results showed that childhood histories of abuse/neglect in general and neglect and sexual abuse

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    ☆

    This research was supported in part by grants from Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD (HD40774), NIMH (MH49467 and MH58386), NIJ (86-IJ-CX-0033 and 89-IJ-CX-0007), NIDA (DA17842 and DA10060), NIAAA (AA09238 and AA11108), and the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation to the second author. Points of view are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the position of the United States Department of Justice.

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