Aggression inhibition in high- and low-risk subjects for child physical abuse: effects of a child's hostile intent and the presence of mitigating information

Abstract

Exposure of an aggressor to the suffering of his/her victim generally inhibits subsequent attacks [e.g. Baron, 1971a] presumably because of an empathic process. Physically abusive parents and individuals at high risk for child physical abuse are thought to present a deficit in empathy [e.g. Milner, Halsey and Fultz, 1995]. The present research was designed to investigate whether highrisk, compared to low-risk, subjects for child physical abuse select more aggressive responses and aggress with more intensity toward a supposed child whose behavior is adequate, inadequate or ambiguous in the presence of the child's pain cues. A second objective was to explore whether high-risk, compared to low-risk, subjects for child physical abuse fail to adequately integrate mitigating information and, therefore, do not inhibit their aggressive behavior following the receipt of mitigating information before or during an inadequate child behavior. Participants were engaged in an experimental task that involved attempting to teach a child how to proceed accurately through a computer-displayed maze and were given the opportunity to send positive (pleasant sounds and happy faces) and negative feedback (mad faces and unpleasant sounds) to the child. Two hundred and fifty undergraduate students participated in the experiment. A 2 Â 5 factorial design based on two levels of the participant's risk status (high, low) and five conditions based on the child's behavior and the introduction of mitigating information was employed. As expected, low-risk, compared to high-risk, subjects showed less aggression when mitigating information was provided.

Psychometric characteristics of translated versions of the Child Abuse Potential Inventory.

“…In addition, belief in corporal punishment (Ahn, 2004 [Korean/South Korea]), more use of power assertion and less use of instructional discipline techniques (de Paúl, Asla, et al, 2006 [Spanish/Spain]), and more use of harsh discipline (Dolz, Cerezo, & Milner, 1997 [Spanish/Spain]; Montes et al, 2001 [Spanish/Spain]) were associated with elevated scores on translated versions of the Abuse scale. Similarly, more intense aggression in the presence of victim pain cues (i.e., feedback of a victim's pain level following the administration of a shock by the study participant; Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2005a [Spanish/Spain]), more aggression in the presence of mitigating information (de Paúl, Pérez-Albéniz, Ormaechea, Vergara, & de Cádiz, 2006 [Spanish/Spain]), more aggression overall (Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2005a, 2006 [Spanish/Spain]), less adaptive responses to infants' difficult behaviors (Cerezo, Trenado, & Pons-Salvador, 2006 [Spanish/Spain]), less dispositional empathy (de Paúl et al, 2008 [Spanish/Spain]; Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2003, 2004 [Spanish/Spain]), less general empathy (Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2005b [Spanish/Spain]), less empathy toward children (Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2004 [Spanish/Spain]), and less frequent use of positive parenting techniques (Dolz et al, 1997 [Spanish/Spain]) were associated with elevated scores on the Abuse scale.…”

Validating the voodoo doll task as a proxy for aggressive parenting behavior.

“…Child physical abuse (CPA) researchers also have used laboratory-based aggression paradigms to assess parent-to-child aggression (e.g., Bugental, Lewis, Lin, Lyon, & Kopeikin, 1999; Crouch et al, 2012; de Paúl, Pérez-Albéniz, Ormaechea, Vergara, & de Cádiz, 2006). Researchers using these paradigms engineer situations in which parents complete a task and parental aggression is inferred based on task performance.…”

The origin of maltreatment: An exploratory study on the intergenerational transmission of child abuse typologies

“…Physical maltreatment was the only type that presented an association with the maternal socio-economic status (Sneddon et al, 2010). Also, several other studies have shown that high-risk subjects for child abuse have a lower empathic capacity, and present higher anxiety and discomfort rates when observing other's discomfort, further more, they tend to act in a more aggressive and impulsive manner when faced with what they perceive as misbehavior, not taking into account mitigating information (de Paúl, Pérez-Albéniz, Ormaechea, Vergara, & de Cádiz, 2006;Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2003;Pérez-Albéniz & de Paúl, 2004).…”