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.

Secure base scripted knowledge and preschoolers' social competence in samples from Mexico and Peru.

A central hypothesis in attachment theory poses that child-mother relationships have implications for children's social competence. A key task for researchers is that of investigating the pathways responsible for the association found between child attachment security and social competence. We studied whether children's secure base representations, defined as scripts, are associated with assessments of social competence in a preschool setting.

Predicting aggressive behavior in the third year from infant reactivity and regulation as moderated by maternal behavior.

The degree to which infant attention behaviors, together with infant reactivity to frustrating events, predict aggressive behavior at 2.5 years, and the moderating effect of maternal behavior were tested with 64 low-risk mothers and infants. Mothers rated infant negative reactivity at 5 months and aggressive behavior and maternal trait anger at 2.