COMMUNICATION OF AFFECT WITH ABUSE-ELICITING CHILDREN

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The proposed research applies a transactional model of family interaction to caregiving systems involving children who are a high risk for physical abuse. The general model predicts that social-emotional features of adult-child interaction are (a) moderated by social attributions, and (b) mediated by particular verbal and nonverbal communication patterns. Past test of the model focused upon caregiver expressions of power as cause and consequence of "difficult" child behavior. The present research focuses on caregiver expression of affect as both cause and consequence of "difficult" child behavior. Abusive family systems are predicted to involve (a) aversive child behavior, (b) parental attributions involving low "credit to self" for caregiving success and high "blame to child" for caregiving failure, and (c) caregiver communication pattern characterized by high negative affect and infrequent or insincere positive affect. Negative affect is predicted to be manifested most clearly in high "leakage" communicaton components, e.g., tone of voice, brief facial displays. Caregiver manifestations of positive affect are expected to be accompanied by cues as to their "managed" nature, e.g., smiles that have unusually brief offset times, simultaneous "leakage" of powerlessness in a second communication channel. Hypotheses will be tested in both natural and synthetic families. In families at high risk for material child abuse (N = 40), the mother will be sequentially videotaped interacting with a child she targets for abuse and a sibling she is less likely to target. All sibling pairs will also be videotaped interacting with unrelated mothers. These companion investigations will allow us to determine the extent to which (a) targeted children (in comparison with their non-targeted siblings) elicit equivalent affective responses from their own and unrelated mothers, (b) caregivers who have particular attributional patterns are more reactive to "difficult" child behavior, and (c) "difficult" child behavior is more likely to be maintained by adult communication patterns characterized by negative (or "insincere"/infrequent positive) affect. Demonstration of equivalent sequences in synthetic and natural families will allow causal inferences to be drawn concerning transactional relationships.