Child physical abuse risk moderates spontaneously inferred traits from ambiguous child behaviors

Abstract

The present study examined whether parents at high-risk for child physical abuse (CPA) differed from low-risk parents in their tendency to infer positive traits and negative traits from children's behaviors. The final sample consisted of 58 (25 low CPA risk and 33 high CPA risk) parents. Parents completed a false-recognition task, which involved viewing behavior descriptions paired with child photographs. Half of the behavior descriptions vaguely/strongly implied a trait and half of the implied traits were positive/negative. The contributions of automatic processes and controlled processes to task performance were examined using process dissociation procedures. Low CPA risk parents were significantly less likely to indicate negative traits were present in behavioral descriptions of children when negative traits were vaguely (compared to strongly) implied. In contrast, high CPA risk parents were equally likely to indicate negative traits were present regardless of whether the traits were vaguely or strongly implied. For low (but not high) CPA risk parents, automatic processes contributed significantly less to task performance when negative traits were vaguely implied compared to when the same traits were strongly implied. Given that parenting involves negotiating a seemingly endless series of ambiguous behaviors as children grow and develop, the capacity to refrain from automatically attributing negative traits to children when they exhibit vaguely negative behaviors may serve an important function in reducing risk of aggressive parenting behavior.