Patterns of childhood maltreatment predict emotion processing and regulation in emerging adulthood

Abstract

Childhood maltreatment is a potent interpersonal trauma associated with dysregulation of emotional processes relevant to the development of psychopathology. The current study identified prospective links between patterns of maltreatment exposures and dimensions of emotion regulation in emerging adulthood. Participants included 427 individuals (48% Male; 75.9% Black, 10.8% White, 7.5% Hispanic, 6% Other) assessed at two waves. At Wave 1, children (10-12 years) from families eligible for public assistance with and without involvement with Child Protective Services took part in a research summer camp. Patterns of child maltreatment subtype and chronicity (based on coded CPS record data) were used to predict Wave 2 (age 18-24 years) profiles of emotion regulation based on self-report, and affective processing assessed via the Affective Go/No-Go task. Results identified associations between task-based affective processing and self-reported emotion regulation profiles. Further, chronic, multi-subtype childhood maltreatment exposure predicted difficulties with aggregated emotion dysregulation. Exposure to neglect with and without other maltreatment subtypes predicted lower sensitivity to affective words. Nuanced results distinguish multiple patterns of emotion regulation in a sample of emerging adults with high exposure to trauma and socioeconomic stress and suggest that maltreatment disrupts emotional development, resulting in difficulties identifying emotions and coping with emotional distress.

Keywords: affective go/no-go; childhood maltreatment; emotion regulation; person-centered.

Figure 1.

Testing associations between childhood maltreatment class (wave 1), profiles of affective appraisal and regulation strategies (wave 2), and affective go/no-go (AGN) performance (wave 2). Profiles of childhood maltreatment experiences were specified in the wave 1 sample in a prior study (see Warmingham et al., 2019).

Figure 2.

LPA 5-class solution profile with standardized indicator means.

Figure 3a.

Scores on d’ (sensitivity) across emotion regulation classes.

Figure 3b.

Scores on β (perceptual threshold, indicating attention bias) across emotion regulation classes.

Figure 4a.

Scores on d’ (sensitivity) across maltreatment classes.

Figure 4b.

Scores on β (perceptual threshold, indicating attention bias) across maltreatment classes.

Figure 5.

Maltreatment patterns relate to affective processing and emotion regulation in emerging adulthood. Note: ER =Emotion Regulation; Mdiff = mean difference; OR= odds ratio. Marginal effects denoted in Table 3 are not shown in this figure.