Description
Maltreated children include those who have been neglected, physically abused, sexually abused, and/or emotionally abused. Maltreatment has been linked to various maladaptive outcomes, including aggressive behavior, internalizing symptoms such as anxiety and depression, and maladaptive social information-processing (SIP) patterns. Social cognitive theories posit that early life experiences shape internal representation models, which in turn influences various behavioral outcomes. Although there are studies assessing the effects of social information processing patterns on behavioral outcomes in maltreated children, there is limited attention focusing on the relations between social informationprocessing patterns and internalizing symptoms such as withdrawn, depressive or anxious behavior. The focus of this study was to examine the potential role social informationprocessing patterns plays in mediating the relation between maltreatment experiences and internalized symptoms in a sample of young elementary children, some who have experienced maltreatment and some with no prior history of maltreatment. Two maltreatment subgroups were represented in this sample, children who had experienced neglect and children who had experienced neglect and physical abuse. A series of regression analyses were utilized to test the study's hypotheses. First, it was hypothesized that children who had experienced maltreatment would evidence higher internalizing symptoms on the Child Behavior Checklist (CBCL) than those who had not experienced maltreatment. It was also hypothesized that children who had experienced physical abuse would evidence higher levels of internalizing symptoms than children who had only experienced neglect. Second, it was hypothesized that children who had been maltreated would display inaccurate encoding, hostile biases, and inept problem solving responses in both peer provocation and group entry situations compared to those who had not been maltreated. In addition, children in the physical abuse subgroup would display inaccurate encoding, hostile biases, and inept problem solving responses in both peer provocation group entry situations compared to those who had experienced neglected only. Third, it was hypothesized that inaccurate encoding, hostile biases, and inept problem solving responses in peer provocation and group entry situations would be associated with higher levels of internalizing symptoms, controlling for maltreatment. Finally, to establish that SIP patterns would mediate the relation between maltreatment and internalizing symptoms, the effect of maltreatment on internalizing symptoms, when controlling for SIP, was predicted to be zero. Gender was included in each model as a potential moderating variable. Results indicated that compared to nonmaltreated children, maltreated children had higher scores on the withdrawal subscale of the CBCL. In addition, children who experienced both physical abuse and neglect had higher withdrawal scores than those who experienced neglect only. Also, maltreated children were found to demonstrate more inaccuracies in encoding of provocation situations and to display more inept social problem solving than nonmaltreated children. Furthermore, these relations were stronger for males than females. No differences were found between maltreated and nonmaltreated children on hostile biases. Contrary to what was hypothesized, the results of the regression analyses did not support the role of SIP patterns in mediating the relation between maltreatment and internalizing problems. Findings, study limitations, and future directions are discussed.
