Impact of Child Maltreatment on Attachment and Social Rank Systems

Abstract

Child maltreatment is a prevalent societal problem that has been linked to a wide range of social, psychological, and emotional difficulties. Maltreatment impacts on two putative evolved psychobiological systems in particular, the attachment system and the social rank system. The maltreatment may disrupt the child's ability to form trusting and reassuring relationships and also creates a power imbalance where the child may feel powerless and ashamed. The aim of the current article is to outline an evolutionary theory for understanding the impact of child maltreatment, focusing on the interaction between the attachment and the social rank system. We provide a narrative review of the relevant literature relating to child maltreatment and these two theories. This research highlights how, in instances of maltreatment, these ordinarily adaptive systems may become maladaptive and contribute to psychopathology. We identify a number of novel hypotheses that can be drawn from this theory, providing a guide for future research. We finally explore how this theory provides a guide for the treatment of victims of child maltreatment. In conclusion, the integrated theory provides a framework for understanding and predicting the consequences of maltreatment, but further research is required to test several hypotheses made by this theory.

Getting less than their fair share: Maltreated youth are hyper‐cooperative yet vulnerable to exploitation in a public goods game

“…First, the extent to which hyper‐cooperativeness toward unfamiliar peers generalizes to other contexts, including the family and longer term relationships as well as its real‐life correlates within interactions, will be an important avenue for future research. Overcompliance toward caregivers (Crittenden & DiLalla, ), excessive submissiveness (Sloman & Taylor, ), and indiscriminate friendliness toward strangers (Kay & Green, ) have been observed among maltreated versus nonmaltreated individuals and are candidate behaviors that may partly correspond to hyper‐cooperativeness we observed here. Second, future research should consider the psychobiological mechanisms underpinning hyper‐cooperative behavior among maltreated youth.…”

“…A hyper‐cooperative strategy may make a great deal of sense assuming that maltreated youth would initially follow the goal of reducing the odds of hostile and/or increasing the odds of benign encounters with others (Sloman & Taylor, ). However, this type of submissive behavior may make them easy targets for exploitation by others—as was particularly evident when they interacted with selfish coplayers in our PGG.…”

“…Simultaneously, an independent line of inquiry suggests that maltreated children may go out of their way to minimize the odds of hostile encounters with others. Scholars have thus empirically observed a set of behaviors involving compulsive compliance (Crittenden & Ainsworth, ; Crittenden & DiLalla, ) or indiscriminate friendliness/social disinhibition (Kay & Green, ; Rutter et al., ) introducing theoretical concepts, such as costly altruism (Zahn‐Waxler & van Hulle, ) or excessive submissiveness (Sloman & Taylor, ) following early adversity, including maltreatment. However, this research has yet to be reconciled with the aforementioned work showing diminished levels of cooperation in the wake of maltreatment.…”

Experiences of compassion focused therapy in eating disorder recovery: A qualitative model

“…An imbalance involving a heightened competitive social mentality with less activation of caring and cooperative social mentalities is considered relevant to understanding many experiences of mental health difficulties (Gilbert, ). In such instances, individuals may feel unsafe in relationships, feel unsuccessful in social competition and experience higher levels of shame and self‐criticism (Gilbert et al, ; McEwan, Gilbert, & Duarte, ; Sloman & Taylor, ). CFT categorises emotions according to three systems: (a) Threat: alertness to threat and the activation of defensive behaviours; (b) Drive: incentivisation of seeking behaviour; and (c) Soothing: to allow for rest and digestion (Gilbert, ).…”

A Social Neuroscience Approach to Interpersonal Interaction in the Context of Disruption and Disorganization of Attachment (NAMDA)

“…In so doing, we feel it is particularly pertinent to point out that we are by no means equating these phenotypes with concrete adverse events, specifically, abuse (the presence of threatening / harmful input) and neglect (or deprivation / lack of necessary input), respectively (96). Rather, in our view the fundamental issue is if these puzzling from a pure perspective of neuro-cognitive dysfunction (see (109) for evolutionary arguments why these behaviors might be adaptive, for example, in the sense of minimizing the odds of malignant and maximizing the odds of benign interactions). In particular, we propose distinguishing between neurobiological hyper-and hypo-arousal phenotypes coinciding with disrupted and/or disorganized attachment, primarily based on the available neurobiological data from children with severe adversity.…”