Louise Silvern

Retrospective reports of parental partner abuse: Relationships to depression, trauma symptoms and self-esteem among college students

This study tested whether retrospective reports of childhood exposure to parental partner abuse were associated with internalizing aspects of adult adjustment. Participants were 550 men and women college students. Among women, childhood exposure to partner abuse was related to depression, trauma-related symptoms, and low self-esteem; among men, exposure was associated with trauma-related symptoms. These relationships were statistically independent of reported parental alcohol abuse and divorce. Relationships of parental partner abuse to low self-esteem and depression among women were also independent of variation in retrospective reports of child sexual and physical abuse. However, the relationship of partner abuse to trauma-related symptoms depended, in part, on the co-occurrence of child abuse. The discussion addressed implications of the findings for future research and for clinical practice.

Type and Extent of Child Abuse as Predictors of Adult Functioning

Child abuse is associated with a variety of difficulties later in life. However, it is unclear to what extent these outcomes are related to the type and combinations of abuse (i.e., sexual versus physical) rather than the variable characteristics within each type. Information regarding child abuse histories as well as current functioning was gathered from a community sample of 259 working women. Incest and severe physical abuse were each associated with similar symptoms, with people who were more severely abused showing worse outcomes. Those women who were both physically and sexually abused had less favorable outcomes than those abused in only one manner. The effects of abuse could not be understood without taking combinations of different types and severities into account. The implications of the similarities of the outcomes of severe sexual and physical abuse were discussed.

Parenting and family stress as mediators of the long-term effects of child abuse.

Child abuse is known to be associated with a variety of adult psychological difficulties. However, the level and types of such difficulties may be influenced by variation in other nonabusive aspects of the child-rearing context. This study examines whether variation in perceived parental warmth and in nonabusive family stressors influenced the strength of relationships of womens psychological difficulties to their childhood sexual and/or physical abuse. Child abuse, family stress histories, and perceived parental warmth, as well as current psychological functioning was gathered from a community sample of 259 working women. Perceived parental warmth, childhood stress, and abuse were each separately associated with current functioning. However, as expected, multiple regression analyses showed that parental warmth strongly influenced or mediated the relationship of intrafamilial child abuse to depression and self-esteem levels. In contrast, abuse was associated to PTSD independently of variation in perceived parenting. Finally, parenting mediated initial relationships of childhood stress to each of the adjustment measures. The Discussion focuses on the possibility that there may be several developmental pathways that lead to the array of symptoms associated with child abuse. Some symptoms, such as PTSD, may be most influenced by the abuse itself, while others, such as depression, and low self-esteem may be more impacted by lack of parental warmth. Treatment implications are discussed.

Self-Rated Adjustment and Sex-Typing on the Bem Sex-Role Inventory: Is Masculinity the Primary Predictor of Adjustment?.

Questions concerning the relationship between self-rated adjustment and the Bem Sex-Role Inventory (BSRI) were examined in two studies. In Study I, whether sex-typing was defined by Bems original t-test criterion or the newer median-split criterion, superior adjustment was associated with androgynous vs. traditional typing only among women, not men. Also in conflict with the androgyny position, adjustment differences among sex-types were accounted for by differences in masculinity, not in femininity or androgyny per se. The greater contribution of masculinity vs. femininity to self-rated adjustment may be exaggerated because BSRI femininity includes items which do not load on a unidimensional femininity factor. In Study II, inspection of these unrelated items suggested that they reduce the desirability of BSRI femininity, thereby reducing its relationship to adjustment. Comparisons between standard BSRI scoring and an alternative based on unidimensional subscales revealed that the alternative femininity subscale was judged to be more desirable, and it reduced the degree of difference between masculinity and femininity in their relationships to adjustment. Superior adjustment, however, was again associated with androgynous vs. traditional sex-typing only among women, and adjustment differences among sex-types were again accounted for by differences in masculinity.

Type and severity of abuse as predictors of psychiatric symptoms in adolescence

There has been little previous research about histories of child maltreatment and psychological symptoms in adolescent psychiatric patients. This study investigated whether type and characteristics of child physical and/or sexual abuse predicted individual differences in symptoms. Participants were 187 patients in day or residential treatment facilities. Abuse was assessed using structured interviews with the adolescent, the therapist, and the caseworker. Participants completed a standardized, self-report measure of internalizing and externalizing symptoms. Adolescents with histories of dual abuse (i.e., sexual and physical abuse) had elevated depression and anxiety compared with nonabused patients. Histories of any type of abuse were associated with elevated posttraumatic symptoms. Among physically abused patients, severity and duration of abuse predicted individual differences in depression and anxiety, whereas severity and concomitant sexual abuse predicted elevated posttraumatic symptoms. Among sexually abused patients, the characteristics of sexual abuse did not predict individual differences in symptoms. Thus, child abuse, particularly dual abuse and severe physical abuse, predicted elevated internalizing symptoms, even in comparison with other adolescent psychiatric patients. The need for replication is discussed.

Two Formats for Eliciting Retrospective Reports of Child Sexual and Physical Abuse: Effects on Apparent Prevalence and Relationships to Adjustment

This study compared two common questionnaire formats for eliciting retrospective child abuse reports. Self-defined formats ask participants whether they were abused, using that term. Researcher-defined formats ask about particular abuse-related events, allowing researchers to specify criteria for identifying abuse histories. Adjustment was measured by self-report inventories of depressive and posttraumatic symptoms and global self-esteem. Participants were 542 college women and men. Significantly less abuse was reported on the self- versus researcher-defined formats. Self-defined abuse was more frequent if participants met criteria for researcher- defined sexual or dual abuse versus physical abuse and if they reported relatively frequent childhood physical violence, severe sexual acts, and marginally, sexual perpetrators who were incestuous. Relationships of adjustment with researcher-defined versus self-defined abuse were stronger, and relationships between adjustment and researcher-defined abuse were independent of self-defined abuse. Discussion addressed methods of eliciting retrospective abuse histories for research and for clinical purposes.

Stressful life events: Moderators of the relationships of gender and gender roles to self-reported depression and suicidality among college students

The present study examined whether relationships of self-reported depression and suicidality to gender roles or gender are moderated by the type of stressful life events that individuals experience. The focus was on events in stereotypic male (achievement) versus female (interpersonal) domains. This study of 290 women and 247 men undergraduates employed the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI), the Personal Attributes Questionnaire and a measure of recent negative life events. In the presence of high achievement stress, high masculinity was related to low suicidality for men. In the presence of high interpersonal stress, high femininity was related to low self-reported depression for women. These findings were interpreted as consistent with the androgyny model of adjustment. However, independent of gender roles, high interpersonal stress was related to high self-reported depression more strongly among women than among men. Suicidality was related to interpersonal events for women and achievement events for men. These findings were interpreted as consistent with the self-schema model of depression.

Children's sex-role preferences: Stronger among girls than boys

Criticisms were raised about methods used in previous studies which have led to the conclusion that, compared to boys, girls have weaker preferences for their own versus the opposite sex role. In addition, it was argued that if childrens own conceptions of sex roles — rather than an a priori adult definition — were investigated, girls would prefer their conception of femininity more than boys would prefer their conception of masculinity. This argument rested on evidence that for children, masculine traits often meet with social disapproval. Results indicated that both boys and girls judged their own sex role as more desirable than the opposite sex role. Results were stronger for the girls; and girls judged traits they assigned to the feminine sex role to be, on the average, more desirable than boys judged traits they assigned to masculinity. The difference between present findings and previous findings in regard to children and adults was discussed.

The Association Between Conduct Problems and Maltreatment: Testing Genetic and Environmental Mediation

It is often assumed that childhood maltreatment causes conduct problems via an environmentally mediated process. However, the association may be due alternatively to either a nonpassive gene-environment correlation, in which parents react to children’s genetically-influenced conduct problems by maltreating them, or a passive gene-environment correlation, in which parents’ tendency to engage in maltreatment and children’s conduct problems are both influenced by a hereditary vulnerability to antisocial behavior (i.e. genetic mediation). The present study estimated the contribution of these processes to the association between maltreatment and conduct problems. Bivariate behavior genetic analyses were conducted on approximately 1,650 twin and sibling pairs drawn from a large longitudinal study of adolescent health (Add Health). The correlation between maltreatment and conduct problems was small; much of the association between maltreatment and conduct problems was due to a nonpassive gene-environment correlation. Results were more consistent with the hypothesis that parents respond to children’s genetically-influenced conduct problems by maltreating them than the hypothesis that maltreatment causes conduct problems.

Social Perspective-Taking and Adjustment in Emotionally Disturbed, Learning-Disabled, and Normal Children.

Preadolescent emotionally disturbed, learning-disabled, and normal boys were compared on social perspective-taking and behavioral measures to examine possible contributions of social cognitive deficits to childrens adjustment problems. Antisocial-prosocial and withdrawn-gregarious behavior dimensions were studied through subscales derived from teacher ratings. Results indicated that across all groups, high perspective-taking was associated with significantly less withdrawal than was low perspective-taking; within groups, this finding was significant only for the emotionally disturbed boys. Contrary to theoretical assumptions, antisocial behavior was not significantly related to perspective-taking across the sample. Among emotionally disturbed boys, relatively higher affective perspectivetaking was significantly correlated with higher antisocial behavior. This positive correlation for the emotionally disturbed group was significantly different from the nonsignificant negative correlation between antisocial behavior and perspective-taking among normals. Findings for learning-disabled boys were intermediate. between results for emotionally disturbed and normal boys on both perspectivetaking and behavioral measures, and the learning-disabled group generally did not differ significantly from either other group. Theoretical and clinical implications of the findings are discussed