Abstract
BackgroundDifferent types of maltreatment (emotional, physical, and sexual) lead to distortions in emotion and attention processing. The present study investigated whether the experience of peer victimization in childhood and adolescence has an additional influence on attention processing in adulthood.MethodsTwo non-clinical samples consisting of individuals with different levels of experiences of maltreatment were recruited. In an evaluative conditioning task, images of faces with neutral emotional expression were either associated with short videos of intense negative statements, or associated with neutral videos. Subsequently, these faces were used as stimuli in an emotional Stroop task as well as a dot-probe task.ResultsIn both tasks, hierarchical regression analyses revealed that retrospective reports of relational peer victimization made an incremental contribution to the prediction of attentional biases beyond child maltreatment. In the emotional Stroop task, emotional abuse was the strongest predictor for an attentional bias showing delayed responses to negatively associated faces, while peer victimization was associated with faster responses to negatively associated faces. In the dot-probe task, relational peer victimization was the strongest predictor for an attentional bias. When the attentional bias was examined in more detail, though, peer victimization did not show incremental contributions although emotional abuse remained the strongest predictor for facilitated attention toward negatively associated neutral faces.ConclusionExperiences of peer victimization leave additional cognitive scars beyond effects of childhood maltreatment by caregivers. It is likely that attentional biases in the aftermath of victimization put individuals at risk for the development of psychopathology.
Highlights
Attentional biases are characterized by a selective and differential allocation of attention toward emotional stimuli in comparison to neutral stimuli
Using a facial emotional Stroop and a facial dot-probe task, we examined the contribution of peer victimization to the prediction of attentional biases beyond experiences of child maltreatment using hierarchical regression analyses in two different samples with varying levels of childhood maltreatment and peer victimization
Consistent with our hypotheses, the present study showed that retrospective reports of relational peer victimization made a significant, incremental contribution to the prediction of attentional biases beyond child maltreatment
Summary
Attentional biases are characterized by a selective and differential allocation of attention toward emotional stimuli in comparison to neutral stimuli (for a review, see Cisler and Koster, 2010). Peer Victimization Influences Attention Processing is more difficult than disengaging from neutral stimuli), and attentional avoidance (i.e., shifting attention toward locations opposite the location of threat; Cisler and Koster, 2010). Various kinds of childhood maltreatment have differential psychopathological outcomes (Danielson et al, 2005; Teicher et al, 2006; Lobbestael et al, 2010; Teicher and Samson, 2013) This is supported by recent reports of differential effects of abuse and neglect on neural mechanisms that may link childhood maltreatment to psychopathology and alterations in emotional functioning (Dong et al, 2004; McLaughlin et al, 2014; Sheridan and McLaughlin, 2014; Humphreys and Zeanah, 2015; Zeanah and Sonuga-Barke, 2016; Roth et al, 2018). The present study investigated whether the experience of peer victimization in childhood and adolescence has an additional influence on attention processing in adulthood
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