Cited by 287Child Abuse and TraumaChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentChild Welfare and Adoption

Long-term effects of child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in adulthood

Open access
Young, Joanna Cahall, Widom, Cathy Spatz·2014·Child Abuse & Neglect

Abstract

To determine whether child maltreatment has a long-term impact on emotion processing abilities in adulthood and whether IQ, psychopathology, or psychopathy mediate the relationship between childhood maltreatment and emotion processing in adulthood. Using a prospective cohort design, children (ages 0-11) with documented cases of abuse and neglect during 1967-1971 were matched with non-maltreated children and followed up into adulthood. Potential mediators (IQ, Post-Traumatic Stress [PTSD], Generalized Anxiety [GAD], Dysthymia, and Major Depressive [MDD] Disorders, and psychopathy) were assessed in young adulthood with standardized assessment techniques. In middle adulthood (Mage=47), the International Affective Picture System was used to measure emotion processing. Structural equation modeling was used to test mediation models. Individuals with a history of childhood maltreatment were less accurate in emotion processing overall and in processing positive and neutral pictures than matched controls. Childhood physical abuse predicted less accuracy in neutral pictures and childhood sexual abuse and neglect predicted less accuracy in recognizing positive pictures. MDD, GAD, and IQ predicted overall picture recognition accuracy. However, of the mediators examined, only IQ acted to mediate the relationship between child maltreatment and emotion processing deficits. Although research has focused on emotion processing in maltreated children, these new findings show an impact child abuse and neglect on emotion processing in middle adulthood. Research and interventions aimed at improving emotional processing deficiencies in abused and neglected children should consider the role of IQ.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1016/j.chiabu.2014.03.008

Cites

82 of 82 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Research works printed but not linked: 2

  1. Gilles EE Berntson GG Zipf WB Gunnar MR 2000 Neglect is associated with a blunting of behavioral and biological stress responses in human infants Paper presented at the International Conference of Infant Studies Brighton, England
  2. Widom CS Robert MD Reese M 2000 Understanding the consequences for childhood victimization Treatment of child abuse 339 361 Baltimore, MD Johns Hopkins University Press

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Young, J. C., & Widom, C. S.
Affiliations
The Graduate Center, CUNY (US)
Corresponding author
Young, Joanna Cahall
Venue
Child Abuse & Neglect
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Published
2014-08
Volume
38
Issue
8
Pages
1369-1381
ISSN
0145-2134 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W2032748584
Cited by
287
References
79
Citations by year
2026: 17 · 2025: 19 · 2024: 24 · 2023: 33 · 2022: 30 · 2021: 31 · 2020: 28 · 2019: 30 · 2018: 29 · 2017: 21 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 8 · 2014: 5
FWCI
18.09
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Child Abuse & Neglect (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (AA11108, AA09238, R03AA009238, R21AA011108)
  • National Institute of Mental Health (MH58386, R01MH058386, R01MH049467)
  • National Institute on Drug Abuse (DA17842, R01DA017842, R01DA010060, DA10060)
  • Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (HD 40774, R01HD040774)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child Abuse and Trauma
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Social Sciences › Safety Research › Child Welfare and Adoption
Keywords
child abuse, child neglect, emotional processing, emotion recognition, adulthood, IQ, mediation, psychopathy, post-traumatic stress disorder, generalized anxiety disorder, dysthymia, major depressive disorder, physical abuse, sexual abuse, International Affective Picture System
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Adult, Anxiety Disorders, Child, Child Abuse, Child Abuse, Sexual, Child, Preschool, Major Depressive Disorder, Emotions, Female, Follow-Up Studies, Humans, Infant, Newborn, Intelligence, Interviews as Topic, Male, Middle Aged, Prospective Studies, Psychiatric Status Rating Scales, Psychopathology, Models, Statistical, Dysthymic Disorder, Adult Survivors of Child Abuse, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review