Citation

Gibb BE, Schofield CA, Coles ME. Child Maltreat. 2009; 14(2): 148-156.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, Binghamton University (SUNY), Binghamton, NY 13902-6000, USA. bgibb@binghamton.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2009, American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children, Publisher SAGE Publishing)

DOI

10.1177/1077559508326358

PMID

18988860

Abstract

The primary goal of this study was to examine the relations between young adults' reports of childhood abuse and their current attention and interpretation biases for facial displays of emotion. Consistent with prediction, individuals reporting a history of moderate to severe childhood abuse exhibited preferential attention to angry faces and increased sensitivity in the detection of angry expressions at lower levels of emotional intensity. Both the attention and interpretation biases were specific to angry rather than happy or sad faces. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that experiences of childhood abuse may contribute to the development of experience-specific information-processing biases.

Language: en