Pathways from Childhood Maltreatment to Unsupportive Emotion Socialization: Implications for Children’s Emotional Inhibition

• In Event: Poster Session 12
  In Poster Session: PS 12 Topic - Parenting & Parent-Child Relationships

Abstract

The acquisition of emotion regulation (ER) skills is a key developmental task in childhood that is facilitated through interactions with primary caregivers, laying the foundation for psychosocial adaptation (Eisenberg & Morris, 2002). Child maltreatment is thought to interfere with the development of ER by disrupting attachment relationships with abusive primary caregivers, which in turn, interferes with the child’s ability to acquire skills needed for self-regulation (Cloitre et al., 2011). Approximately 32% of Canadian adults report experiencing physical and/or sexual abuse as a child (Afifi et al., 2014) and evidence suggests that neglect and emotional abuse are pervasive as well (Chamberland et al., 2011; Trocmé et al., 2003). Adults who have experienced child maltreatment report problems with ER and parenting difficulties (Burns et al., 2010; McCullough et al., 2015), which have been associated with maladaptation in the next generation (Plant et al., 2018). However, parental emotion socialization is understudied in survivors of child maltreatment. Parents’ contingent responses to children’s emotions may contribute to the development of an emotion regulatory style that is carried forward into adulthood (Eisenberg et al., 1998; DeOliveira et al., 2004). According to Gross and John (2003), individuals who chronically suppress or inhibit their emotions report more negative emotionality and interpersonal problems than those who do not use this strategy habitually. A greater reliance on suppression has also been associated with trauma-related psychopathology (Moore et al., 2008) as well as major depressive disorder and social anxiety (D’Avanzato et al., 2013). Given the relationship between chronic emotional inhibition and poor psychosocial outcomes, it is important to identify factors that might contribute to the development of an inhibited emotional regulatory style in children. Parents’ unsupportive contingencies may be one such factor, since these types of reactions send the message that negative feelings are unacceptable, which could lead children to inhibit the expression of their negative emotions in the future (Gottman et al., 1996; O’Neal & Magai 2005). The aim of the present study was to examine whether childhood polyvictimization would influence parental ER skills and parents’ use of unsupportive contingencies in response to anger, sadness, and anxiety. A secondary aim was to determine whether these variables would predict children’s emotional inhibition. Parents (n = 175) of children between the ages of 8 and 12 participated in an online study. Participants completed self-report measures assessing their child maltreatment history; their regulation and socialization of anger, sadness, and anxiety; and a measure of their child’s emotional inhibition. A sequential mediation model revealed that childhood polyvictimization predicted lower levels of parental ER skills, which in turn, increased the likelihood of parents reporting unsupportive contingencies. Further, parents’ use of unsupportive contingencies predicted higher levels of emotional inhibition in children. The present study provides preliminary evidence to support the relationship between a history of child maltreatment, parents’ use of unsupportive contingencies, and emotional inhibition in the next generation. Practitioners working with parents who have been maltreated should focus on enhancing parental ER in order to help parents scaffold healthy emotional development in their children.

Authors

• Sarah Cabecinha-Alati, McGill University
  Presenting Author

• Rachel Langevin, McGill University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Audrey Kern, McGill University
  Non-Presenting Author

• Tina Montreuil, McGill University
  Non-Presenting Author