Using spoken attributions to classify abusive families

Silvester, Jo; Bentovim, Arnon; Stratton, Peter; Hanks, Helga

doi:10.1016/0145-2134(95)00089-q

Cited by 25 publications

(19 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…These parents operated the actor-observer bias (Jones and Nisbett, 1972) in seeing causes as more likely to be internal to their child but external to themselves. Similarly, the tendencies found in two of the other attributional dimensions were consistent with the concept of an 'attributional discrepancy' that has arisen from research with families of abuse (Stratton and Swaffer, 1988;Silvester and Stratton, 1991;Silvester et al, 1995). In their negative attributions about their children, parents generally saw the causes as more controllable and much more personal for the child than for the parent.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Causal attributions during therapy I: Responsibility and blame

Stratton

2003

Journal of Family Therapy

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The way that responsibility is attributed and blame is expressed and apportioned in families is a crucial but rather neglected issue for family therapy. A case is made for analysing causal attributions as a way to gain a better understanding of these processes. The Leeds Attributional Coding System was used to analyse all the attributions made early in therapy by eight families which included biological, step-and adoptive parents. Some 1799 attributions made by family members during ten therapy sessions were identified and their attributional dimensions recorded. Both parents and children used attributional patterns consistent with blaming the child and there was evidence of the occurrence of an 'attributional discrepancy', found previously in families of abuse, with more personal and controllable causes being applied to the child. Considering attributional dimensions in combination proved an effective way of identifying incidences of characterological blaming. Limited changes in the form of these attributions, by focusing on change in just one of the dimensions, could convert them into more benign and productive contributions to family conversations.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 70%

Causal attributions during therapy I: Responsibility and blame

Stratton

2003

Journal of Family Therapy

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“…This study is among the first to provide support for the role of shame and attribution in predicting changes in victims' adjustment. Future research should examine how patterns of shame and attribution may be related to family processes, including parental discipline styles (Ferguson & Stegge, 1995), parental attributions about causes for the abuse and negative events in general (Alessandri & Lewis, 1993;Silvester et al, 1995), and a family environment in which the negative emotions of anger and disgust are more frequently expressed (Grych & Fincham, 1993). Examining individual, family, and other environmental processes related to the development and maintenance of or change in shame and attribution styles should provide valuable insights for theory and intervention.…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This suggests that other factors play a role in the development of this pessimistic style. Other stressful events and parental attributions about children's behavior can engender and sustain attributional styles and merit future study in CSA populations (Alessandri & Lewis, 1993;Silvester, Bentovim, Stratton, & Hanks, 1995). Although the level of internal attributions for the abuse was low on average, changes in these attributions predicted changes in PTSD symptoms.…”

Section: Accounting For Adjustment Over Timementioning

confidence: 99%

Adjustment following sexual abuse discovery: The role of shame and attributional style.

Feiring¹,

Taska²,

Lewis³

2002

Developmental Psychology

221

190

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This study examined adjustment following sexual abuse as a function of shame and attributional style. One hundred forty-seven participants (83 children and 64 adolescents) were seen at the time of abuse discovery and again 1 year later. Once adjustment at abuse discovery was accounted for, shame and attribution style explained additional variation in subsequent adjustment, whereas abuse severity did not. A pessimistic attribution style at abuse discovery moderated the relation between severity of abuse and subsequent depressive symptoms and self-esteem. The relations between abuse severity and these outcomes were significant only at high levels of pessimistic attribution style. Of note, patterns of change in shame and attribution predicted which children remained at risk or improved in adjustment. In addition, age and gender differences were found in adjustment over time.The past decade has seen a considerable increase in the number of studies focusing on sexual abuse and its relation to child outcomes. Child sexual abuse (CSA), in both clinical and nonclinical samples, has been consistently associated with a number of adjustment problems, including depression, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and poor self

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“…The most extensively documented coding system is the Leeds Attribution Coding System (LACS; Stratton, Munton, Hanks, Heard, & Davidson, 1988) that has been used in a variety of familial and nonfamilial contexts (e.g., Silvester, Bentovim, Stratton, & Hanks, 1995;Stratton et al, 1986). Another example of such measures in the marital literature is provided by Holtzworth-Munroe and Jacobson (1985,1988), and Bradbury and Fincham (1988) discuss methodological and conceptual issues involved in coding spontaneous attributions.…”

Section: Obtaining Indices Of Marital Cognitionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Child Development and Marital Relations

Fincham¹

1998

Child Development

133

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This article examines aspects of the marital relationship and its assessment relevant to scholars of child development. The case for attending to marriage in child research is outlined before reviewing what is known about the construct of marital quality, behavior, emotional responding, and cognition in marriage. Practical recommendations are made for assessing each of these areas before arguing that the child's perspective of the marriage is critical for understanding children's behavior. Several limitations and promises of marital research for understanding children are also discussed. INTRODUCTIONSince its inception in the 1920s, empirical research on marriage has yielded a great deal of information. However, this information is scattered across a variety of disparate sources, making it difficult for researchers outside of the marital field to access the picture of marriage painted by scientific research. In this article I highlight some aspects of the marital relationship and its assessment that may be useful to scholars of child development. Notwithstanding the importance of disrupted marital relationships for children, the focus is on intact marriages and on the contribution of psychological research to a scientific understanding of marriage.The article is divided into five sections. In the first section I address briefly why child researchers should pay attention to marriage. The second section provides a quick tour of the marital literature that includes discussion of the most frequently studied construct in the marital literature, marital quality, and practical recommendations for selecting a measure of this construct; reviews of what is known about behavior (including affective behavior) and about cognition in marriage; and guidance on how to obtain indices of behavior and cognition in marriage. A critical question for researchers concerns the perspective from which to study marriage, an issue discussed in the third section. The fourth section highlights some further promises and problems of marital research relevant to child research before the main points and limitations of the article are summarized in the concluding section. WHY CONSIDER THE MARITAL RELATIONSHIP WHEN STUDYING CHILDREN?In this section I examine briefly why the marital relationship is important for understanding child development, considering first conceptual and then empirical reasons for its importance. The section concludes by offering a perspective on research relating marital and child functioning that further supports examination of what the marital literature might have to offer child research. Conceptual PerspectivesSeveral theoretical frameworks that have influenced the study of child development recognize the importance of the marital relationship. For example, psychoanalytic theory has viewed marital disruption as affecting the child's sense of security and the development of delinquency. In a similar vein, social learning theory suggests that children learn how to behave in relationships through observing parental interac...

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Using spoken attributions to classify abusive families

Cited by 25 publications

References 21 publications

Causal attributions during therapy I: Responsibility and blame

Causal attributions during therapy I: Responsibility and blame

Adjustment following sexual abuse discovery: The role of shame and attributional style.

Child Development and Marital Relations

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