Poster #210 - Maternal Emotional Abuse History Predicts Child Emotion Regulation: Pathways through Maternal Regulation and Relational Adversity

• In Event: 1-061 - Poster Session 02
  In Poster Session: PS 02 Section - Social, Emotional, Personality

Integrative Statement

Maternal history of childhood emotional abuse may form a foundation for emotion regulation (ER) difficulties in offspring. Mothers who experienced childhood emotional abuse may have more ER difficulties of their own than mothers who were not emotionally maltreated. Specifically, research suggests that emotional abuse is a stronger predictor of ER difficulties than other types of maltreatment (Burns, Jackson, & Harding, 2010). Additionally, research has found that maternal ER is related to child ER (Are & Shaffer, 2016). As such, the children of mothers who experienced more emotional abuse may have more ER difficulties, stemming from their mother’s ER difficulties. Furthermore, since maternal history of child maltreatment can predict increased risk for perpetration of child abuse (Haapasalo & Aaltonen, 1999), the children of mother’s who experienced more childhood emotional abuse may have an increased risk of relational adversity, including maltreatment, which is also associated with increased child ER difficulties (Kim & Cicchetti, 2010). Therefore, we examined maternal ER and child relational adversity as mechanisms through which maternal history of childhood emotional abuse indirectly affects child ER.
Data were collected from a diverse high-risk sample of mother-child dyads (N = 215). Mothers reported their childhood history of emotional abuse (CEA; Briere, 1992) and completed the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (Gratz & Roemer, 2004) when children were four. Relational adversity was a composite of interpersonal adversities (physical abuse/punishment, sexual abuse, emotional abuse/punishment, neglect, parental substance use, parent health, parent mental health, parental incarceration, death, divorce, separation, foster care) children experienced between ages four and five. Children’s ER was coded as the duration of negative affect expressed during a broken toy disappointment task at age six.
Maternal CEA predicted increased maternal ER difficulties (b = 3.518, SE = 1.055, p = .001), which in turn predicted increased child relational adversity (b = .006, SE = .002, p < .001). Maternal CEA predicted increased child relational adversity (b = .059, SE = .026, p = .022), which predicted increased child ER difficulties (b = .824, SE = .407, p = .044). There was an indirect effect of maternal CEA on child ER through child relational adversity (b = 0.049, SE = 0.027, 95% CI [0.009, 0.126]). There was an indirect effect of maternal CEA on child ER though maternal ER (b = -0.051, SE = 0.030, 95% CI [-0.127, -0.005]). However, since maternal ER difficulty was not a significant direct predictor of child ER difficulties this effect is not interpretable. As hypothesized, there was an overall indirect effect of maternal CEA on child ER difficulties through maternal ER difficulties and child relational adversity (b = 0.017, SE = 0.012, 95% CI [0.004, 0.059]; Figure 1).
Maternal ER difficulties and childhood relational adversity may be mechanisms through which a maternal history of CEA transmits risk for child ER difficulties. As such, prevention efforts for at-risk families should include efforts to improve maternal emotion regulation. Future research should examine other pathways through which emotional abuse transmits intergenerational risk for ER difficulties.

Authors

• Carly Joy Kahn, California State University, Northridge
  Presenting Author

• Sara R. Berzenski, California State University, Northridge
  Non-Presenting Author