Childhood Emotional Maltreatment and Romantic Relationships: The Role of Compassionate Goals

Past research indicates that childhood emotional maltreatment (CEM) undermines the quality of adult romantic relationships by fostering negative characteristics in survivors. Two longitudinal studies investigated the hypothesis that decreased compassionate goals toward partners over time explain the association between CEM and declining relationship quality. In Study 1, CEM predicted decreased compassionate goals over time, which in turn predicted decreased relationship quality in individuals in romantic relationships. Study 2 replicated this effect in romantically involved couples and showed that partners’ high compassionate goals attenuated the decline in compassionate goals associated with reported CEM. These results point to the importance of examining how CEM may affect positive relationship processes and the protective roles of partners’ compassionate goals.

The Many Faces of Child Emotional Maltreatment

Emotional maltreatment is a form of child abuse that may leave no physical scars, but has deep and long-term consequences. When compared to the effects of physical and sexual abuse, its impact has been historically neglected by researchers, despite its existence in all other forms of maltreatment. Beyond its recipient, the alarming effects of emotional abuse are believed to overcome even trans-generational barriers within the household. This poses great risks to the developmental outcomes of children having undergone these circumstances and their future kin. As such, this brief review will describe the signs of emotional maltreatment, its effects, and what can be done to address it.

Neurocognitive Heterogeneity in Social Anxiety Disorder: The Role of Self-Referential Processing and Childhood Maltreatment

Social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by negative self-beliefs and altered brain activation in the default-mode network (DMN). However, the extent to which there is neurocognitive heterogeneity in SAD remains unclear. We had two independent samples of patients perform a self-referential encoding task and complete self-reports of childhood maltreatment, subjective well-being, and emotion regulation. In the replication sample, we also measured DMN activation using functional MRI. We used k-means clustering, which revealed two distinct subgroups of patients with SAD in the discovery sample. Cluster 1 demonstrated higher levels of negative self-referential trait endorsement, lower levels of positive self-referential trait endorsement, and significantly higher levels of childhood emotional maltreatment, lower subjective well-being, and altered emotion-regulation-strategy use. A similar pattern was observed in the replication sample, which further demonstrated higher DMN activation during negative trait judgments in Cluster 1. Participants in the SAD clusters, from both the discovery and replication samples, were significantly distinct from samples of control participants. These findings reveal neurocognitive heterogeneity in SAD and its relationship to emotional maltreatment.

Emerging Adult Report of Childhood Maltreatment and Related Facets of Impulsivity

Childhood maltreatment is related to a host of outcomes, many of which may be partially explained by the transdiagnostic factor of impulsivity. The research linking maltreatment to impulsivity is well supported. However, research differentiating between emotional and physical maltreatment and impulsivity is lacking, particularly with regard to facets of trait impulsivity. Thus, the current study examined the links between childhood emotional and physical maltreatment and current impulsivity traits of positive and negative urgency, lack of perseverance, lack of premeditation, and sensation seeking in emerging adults. Furthermore, effects of maltreatment are known to differ by the gender of the parent and the gender of the child. Thus, differences between parent-emerging adult child gender dyads were also examined. Results suggested both physical and emotional maltreatment were associated with negative urgency across the parent–child gender dyads. Emotional maltreatment and physical maltreatment differed in relation to impulsivity facet across parent and child gender. Results contribute to a knowledge base to use in future exploration of emotional and physical maltreatment outcomes and targets of intervention.