Risk Factors and Moderators of Intimate Partner Violence Victimization Versus Perpetration Among Women in Spain.

Bidirectional intimate partner violence (IPV) appears highly prevalent, but the extant literature, which has been dominated by work in North America, has not adequately accounted for how victimization overlaps with perpetration and how potential resources may interact with risk factors. A community sample of Spanish women completed measures of IPV approval, mental health risk factors (psychological distress and problematic substance use), and interpersonal resources (partner and social satisfaction). Using Mplus accounting for victimization and perpetration overlap, findings indicate that greater psychological distress and substance use were associated with IPV perpetration, and lower IPV approval was linked to victimization.

Leveraging machine learning to study how temperament scores predict pre-term birth status.

Background: Preterm birth (birth at <37 completed weeks gestation) is a significant public heatlh concern worldwide. Important health, and developmental consequences of preterm birth include altered temperament development, with greater dysregulation and distress proneness.

Aims: The present study leveraged advanced quantitative techniques, namely machine learning approaches, to discern the contribution of narrowly defined and broadband temperament dimensions to birth status classification (full-term vs.

Spanking and executive functioning in US children: A longitudinal analysis on a matched sample.

Background: Spanking has been linked to multiple maladaptive child outcomes. However, previous research linking spanking with children's executive function skills (EFs; inhibitory control, cognitive flexibility, and working memory) is limited by research designs that do not adequately address selection bias concerns, wherein the participant characteristics potentially differ between those who are spanked versus not spanked.

Objective: Using a representative sample of US children aged 5 to 6, this study strengthened the evidence for causal estimates on the link between spanking and subsequent EFs with a matched-group design.

Social Information Processing Theory Indicators of Child Abuse Risk: Cultural Comparison of Mothers from Peru and the United States.

Much of the research conducted on social information processing (SIP) factors predictive of child abuse risk has been conducted in North America, raising questions about how applicable such models may be in other cultures. Based on the premise that the parents' child abuse risk is affected by both risk and protective factors, the current study considered how specific SIP socio-cognitive risk factors (acceptability of parent-child aggression as a discipline approach; empathic ability; frustration tolerance) as well as social support satisfaction as a resource related to child abuse risk by comparing a sample of mothers in Peru ( = 102) with a sample of mothers in the U.S.

Racial Identification as a Protective Factor for At-Risk Parenting in Black Parents: A Longitudinal, Multi-Method Investigation.

Although considerable literature focuses on risk factors predicting parents' likelihood to engage in maltreatment, relatively less work evaluates potentially protective parental resources, particularly culturally relevant qualities. The current investigation utilized a multi-method longitudinal study to examine parents' racial identification as a possible resource, hypothesizing that Black parents with stronger racial group identification would demonstrate lower at-risk parenting, operationalized as lower child abuse risk and less negative observed parenting. In a sample of 359 mothers and fathers (half self-identified Black, half non-Hispanic White), controlling for socioeconomic status, findings partially supported the hypothesis.

Psychosocial Resources Predicting Maternal and Paternal Positive Parenting and Lower Child Abuse Risk.

Young children have the highest victimization rates of physical abuse in their first year of life, making up nearly half of all child abuse-related fatalities. More effective prevention is needed to reduce child victimization, yet many risk reduction models rely on problematic inclusion criteria, only intervene after maltreatment has occurred, or focus only on mothers. More proactive prevention models that promote positive parenting practices early in the transition to parenthood could be key to reducing child maltreatment.

Applying Socio-Emotional Information Processing theory to explain child abuse risk: Emerging patterns from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic exerted profound effects on parents, which may translate into elevated child abuse risk. Prior literature demonstrates that Social Information Processing theory is a useful framework for understanding the cognitive processes that can contribute to parental abuse risk, but the model has not adequately integrated affective processes that may coincide with such cognitions.

Objective: Given parents experienced intense emotions during the pandemic, the current study sought to examine how socio-emotional processes might account for abuse risk during the pandemic (perceived pandemic-related increases in harsh parenting, reported physical and psychological aggression, and child abuse potential).

Psychometric Evidence for Indirect Assessment of Child Abuse Risk in Child Welfare-Involved Mothers.

Most research on factors related to physical child abuse risk rely heavily on direct self-report measures, which is a methodological strategy susceptible to participant response distortions. Such methodological reliance obfuscates the interpretations rendered about the risk factors predictive of child abuse. Efforts to develop alternative indirect assessment approaches, such as analog tasks, show promise, although most of those studies have applied these methods to community samples rather than with child welfare-involved samples.

Role of maternal emotion in child maltreatment risk during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Purpose: Preliminary research early in the COVID-19 pandemic suggested children appeared to be at increased risk for child maltreatment, particularly as parents struggled with mental health and economic strains. Such strains were likely to influence parental emotions about their children, affecting their parent-child interactions to contribute to elevated maltreatment risk. To identify the potential affective elements that may contribute to such increased maltreatment risk, the current study focused on whether maternal worry about children's behavior specifically as well as maternal anger were related to increased risk for neglect or physical or psychological aggression six months into the pandemic.

Mediators between Positive and Negative Parenting and Child Depressive and Anxious Symptoms: Findings from a Diverse, At-Risk Sample.

Background: Although children's depressive and anxious symptoms have been broadly construed as internalizing problems, the current study sought to identify factors that may differentially contribute to these two mental health problems in a high-risk sample. Prior research has not adequately tested both depressive versus anxious symptoms simultaneously, nor has it adequately considered the role of negative versus positive parenting simultaneously, thereby neglecting the potential overlap in both sets of constructs. Overlooking such potential statistical overlap obfuscates how factors may differentially contribute to either depressive versus anxious symptoms.

Parenting style history in predicting harsh parenting and child abuse risk across the transition to parenthood: Role of gender.

Background: Intergenerational transmission of abuse processes imply that individuals abused as children are more likely to abuse their own children when they become parents, with similar intergenerational patterns observed for parenting styles.

Objective: The present study addresses an important gap in the literature regarding the intergenerational cycle, investigating how perceived parenting style history predicts mothers' and fathers' child abuse risk across the transition to parenthood, with particular attention to the role of gender by comparing cross-gender and same-gender grandparent-parent dyads.

Participants And Methods: The sample is drawn from a four-wave longitudinal study that enrolled 203 families beginning the final trimester of mothers' pregnancy until children were four years old.

Spotlight on Maternal Perceptions of Child Behavior: A Daily Diary Study with Child Welfare-Involved Mothers.

Research has documented a variety of factors-including stress, attributions, and anger-that may increase parents' risk for child maltreatment, but most of this research is based on low-risk, community samples of parents' perceptions about themselves and their children. Moreover, parents are usually asked to provide self-reports wherein they summarize their general impressions distal from actual parenting. The current study employed experience sampling methods with a high-risk sample.

Child and parent factors predictive of mothers' and fathers' perceived family functioning.

Understanding family functioning, particularly the risk and protective factors that may contribute to adaptive versus maladaptive family processes, is critical to promote child and family well-being and resilience. Guided by family systems theory and the family stress model, this study longitudinally investigated parents' and toddlers' individual-level challenges and parental internal resources as potential predictors of subsequent perceived family functioning (i.e.

Development and psychometric characteristics of analog measures of parental empathy.

Despite substantial literature on the effect of empathy on parenting, empathy research has historically suffered from definitional and methodological limitations. Parental empathy can be characterized as parents' ability to recognize, take the perspective of, and appropriately react to children's emotions. Current parental empathy assessment largely relies on self-report measures of dispositional empathy, but many argue parental empathy is distinct from dispositional empathy.

Assessing Mothers' Automatic Affective and Discipline Reactions to Child Behavior in Relation to Child Abuse Risk: A Dual-Processing Investigation.

Given the scope and adverse clinical consequences of child abuse, assessment of salient etiological factors can lend critical insights needed for abuse prevention. Increasingly, dual-processing models have been applied to aggression, which postulate that parallel automatic and conscious processes can evoke aggressive behavior, implicating both affective and cognitive elements in both routes. Using two samples of mothers ( = 110 and = 195), the current investigation considered evidence of the reliability and convergent, concurrent, and construct validity of the new Automatic Parent Emotion Analog Response task relevant to parent-child aggression, contrasted with a self-reported conscious processing measure.

Underlying mechanisms for racial disparities in parent-child physical and psychological aggression and child abuse risk.

Background: Understanding factors that contribute to parents' use of physical and psychological parent-child aggression (PCA) is critical in efforts to mitigate child maltreatment.

Objective: Extant research has not adequately distinguished risk factors that may differ by race.

Participants And Methods: The present study investigated potential racial differences in worry, approval of PCA, justification for PCA use, negative child intent attributions, and discrimination experiences in relation to child abuse risk and physical and psychological PCA use in a sample of 292 Black (44.

Longitudinal Analysis of Short-term Changes in Relationship Conflict During COVID-19: A Risk and Resilience Perspective.

This study uses a risk and resilience framework to examine short-term self-reported changes in relationship conflict early in the COVID-19 pandemic (March and April 2020). Longitudinal data from U.S.

Factors Distinguishing Reciprocal Versus Nonreciprocal Intimate Partner Violence Across Time and Reporter.

Although intimate partner violence (IPV) is often conceptualized as occurring unilaterally, reciprocal or bidirectional violence is actually the most prevalent form of IPV. The current study assessed physical IPV experiences in couples and evaluated risk and protective factors that may be differentially associated with reciprocal and nonreciprocal IPV concurrently and over time. As part of a multi-wave longitudinal study, women and men reported on the frequency of their IPV perpetration and victimization three times across the transition to parenthood.

Parental Social Isolation and Child Maltreatment Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

On March 11, 2020, COVID-19 was declared a pandemic by the World Health Organization. The social isolation and economic stress resulting from pandemic have the potential to exacerbate child abuse and neglect. This study examines the association of parents' perceived social isolation and recent employment loss to risk for child maltreatment (neglect, verbal aggression, and physical punishment) in the early weeks of the pandemic.

Spillover and Crossover Effects: Mothers' and Fathers' Intimate Partner Violence, Parent-Child Aggression Risk, and Child Behavior Problems.

The high co-occurrence of intimate partner violence (IPV) and physical child abuse suggests that studying these forms of aggression simultaneously, bidirectionally, and longitudinally is critical. Guided by family systems theory, this study examined parent-child aggression (PCA) risk, IPV victimization, and child behavior problems as reported by mothers and fathers when their child was 18 months and at 4 years old, to evaluate whether negative processes can transmit across family subsystems (i.e.

The Perfect Storm: Hidden Risk of Child Maltreatment During the Covid-19 Pandemic.

The Covid-19 pandemic upended the country, with enormous economic and social shifts. Given the increased contact from families living in virtual confinement coupled with massive economic disarray, the Covid-19 pandemic may have created the ideal conditions to witness a rise in childrens experience of abuse and neglect. Yet such a rise will be difficult to calculate given the drop in official mechanisms to track its incidence.

Reliability and Validity of the Lower Extremity Motor Activity Log for Measuring Real-World Leg Use in Adults With Multiple Sclerosis.

Objectives: To determine the test-retest reliability and validity of the Lower Extremity Motor Activity Log (LE-MAL) for assessing LE use in the community in adults with multiple sclerosis (MS).

Design: Prospective analysis of measures conducted by trained examiners.

Setting: Participants were evaluated by telephone on several measures of LE use.

Refining social-information processing theory: Predicting maternal and paternal parent-child aggression risk longitudinally.

Background: Clarifying the pathways leading parents to engage in parent-child aggression (PCA) would benefit child abuse prevention efforts during the perinatal period.

Objective: The present investigation empirically tested whether a social information processing (SIP) model could predict PCA risk from factors assessed in new mothers and fathers.

Participants And Setting: This study recruited a diverse sample of 201 primiparous mothers in the last trimester of their pregnancy along with 151 fathers.

Testosterone Associations With Parents' Child Abuse Risk and At-Risk Parenting: A Multimethod Longitudinal Examination.

The current investigation considered salivary testosterone as a potential biomarker of physical child abuse risk. Parents enrolled in a prospective, longitudinal, multimethod study beginning prenatally provided saliva when their toddlers were 18 months old. Mothers and fathers self-reported on their empathy, frustration tolerance, and child abuse risk, as well as completing analog tasks of frustration intolerance and child abuse risk and participating in structured parent-child interactions.