Physical Abuse and Child Aggression:Role of ANS Arousal

申请人申请通过“职业发展辅导奖”（K23）获得五年的资助，进行心理生理学方法的培训，以研究身体虐待和家庭暴力对儿童的影响。候选人的最终目标是将这次培训与她以前的观察方法经验结合起来。候选人还将获得在以受虐待和被忽视儿童为样本进行研究时涉及的伦理和方法问题方面的经验。培训包括在儿童虐待、家庭暴力、心理生理学、攻击、测量设计和多变量数据分析方面的研究专家的课程学习和密切指导。研究计划的主要目标是测试自主神经系统（ANS）活动在家庭暴力和两种不同类型的青少年攻击之间的联系中的作用的竞争模型：主动攻击，这是情绪性和工具性的，反应性攻击，这是情绪性和防御性的。家庭暴力的创伤可能使儿童敏感，导致ANS对随后的冲突活动增加，从而增加反应性攻击。另外，长期暴露于家庭暴力可能会抑制ANS活动，从而增加主动攻击。还有一种可能性是，家庭暴力不影响ANS活动，但ANS反应缓和了家庭暴力对青少年攻击的影响。数据收集将成为R01拨款的一部分，用于研究虐待和忽视对青少年发展的影响。样本将包括由洛杉矶儿童和家庭服务部确定的210名受虐待的青少年和210名比较儿童。将测量ANS的觉醒和对冲突刺激的反应，并获得有关攻击和家庭暴力史的信息。该奖项的第一年将致力于开发用于心理生理评估的刺激，并改进主动和反应性攻击的测量方法。接下来的几年将致力于开展实质性的研究项目。

The applicant requests five years of funding through the Mentored Career Development Award (K23) for training in psychophysiological methods to examine the effects of physical abuse and domestic violence on children. The candidate's ultimate goal is to integrate this training with her previous experience in observational approaches. The candidate will also gain experience in the ethical and methodological issues involved in conducting research with samples of abused and neglected children. Training includes coursework and close mentoring with experts in research on child abuse, domestic violence, psychophysiology, aggression,, measurement design, and multi-variate data analysis. The primary goal of the research plan is to test competing models for the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) activity in the link between family violence and two different types of adolescent aggression: proactive aggression, which is unemotional and instrumental, and reactive aggression, which is emotional and defensive. The trauma of family violence may sensitize children, causing increased ANS activity to subsequent conflict and thereby increased reactive aggression. Alternatively, prolonged exposure to family violence may cause suppressed ANS activity and thus increased proactive aggression. Still another possibility is that family violence does not affect ANS activity, but that ANS response moderates the effect of family violence on adolescent aggression. Data collection will be part of a larger R01 grant examining the effects of abuse and neglect on adolescent development. The sample will include 210 abused adolescents identified by the Los Angeles Department of Child and Family Services and 210 comparison children. ANS arousal and reactivity to conflict stimuli will measured, and information regarding aggression and family violence histories will be obtained. The first year of the award will be devoted to developing stimuli for the psychophysiological assessments and to refining measures of proactive and reactive aggression. The subsequent years will be devoted to conducting the substantive research project.