Does accessibility of positive and negative schema vary by child physical abuse risk?
OBJECTIVE
To examine differences in accessibility of positive and negative schema in parents with high and low risk for child physical abuse (CPA).


METHODS
This study combined picture priming and lexical decision making methods to assess the accessibility of positive and negative words following presentation of child and adult faces. The child and adult faces depicted positive, ambiguous, and negative affective valences. The sample included 67 (51 low and 16 high CPA risk) general population parents.


RESULTS
CPA risk status was associated with accessibility of positive/negative words only following priming with faces of the opposite affective valence. More specifically, high CPA risk parents were slower to respond to positive (negative) words following priming with negative (positive) faces. Exploratory analyses indicated that this pattern of findings was more clearly apparent when picture primes involved adult faces.


CONCLUSIONS
The present findings suggest that high and low CPA risk parents differ in how they process affectively incongruent information. Research is needed to further examine schema accessibility, as well as to examine whether processes involved in attention and affect integration play a role in CPA risk.
Crouch
Julie L
JL
Center for the Study of Family Violence and Sexual Assault, Northern Illinois University, DeKalb, IL 60115, USA.
Risser
Heather J
HJ
Skowronski
John J
JJ
Milner
Joel S
JS
Farc
Magdalena M
MM
Irwin
Lauren M
LM
D000293:Adolescent; D000328:Adult; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D002649:Child Abuse / Q000523:psychology*; D003071:Cognition; D003657:Decision Making; D005149:Facial Expression; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D020407:Internet; D007398:Interpersonal Relations; D007802:Language; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D011581:Psychological Tests; D014584:User-Computer Interface; D055815:Young Adult