Citation

Dickerson K, Flynn E, Levine LJ, Quas JA. Child Abuse Negl. 2018; 77: 222-231.

Affiliation

University of California, Irvine, Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, 4201 SBSG, Irvine, CA 92697, United States. Electronic address: jquas@uci.edu.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2018, Elsevier Publishing)

DOI

10.1016/j.chiabu.2018.01.010

PMID

29407607

Abstract

Although child maltreatment places youth at substantial risk for difficulties with emotion regulation and aggression, not all maltreated youth show these adverse effects, raising important questions about characteristics that discriminate those who do versus do not evidence long-term negative outcomes. The present investigation examined whether implicit beliefs about emotion moderated the association between maltreatment and aggression. Maltreated (n = 59) and community-matched (n = 66) youth were asked regarding their beliefs about emotion and aggressive behaviors. Beliefs about emotion were more strongly associated with aggression among maltreated youth, particularly physically abused youth. Maltreated youth who believed they had poor ability to control emotion reported significantly higher levels of aggression than comparison youth. However, maltreated youth who believed they had high ability to control emotion did not differ significantly in aggression from that of comparison youth.

FINDINGS offer unique insight into a factor that may increase or buffer maltreated youth's risk for aggression and thus highlight potential directions for interventions to reduce aggressive tendencies.

Copyright © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Language: en

Keywords

Aggression; Emotion; Implicit beliefs; Maltreatment