Intergenerational continuity of child maltreatment: The role of maternal emotional dysregulation and mother–child attachment.
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Objective: Child maltreatment is a prevalent problem, and a lot remains unknown regarding the prevalence and mechanisms involved in its intergenerational continuity. The present study examines the sequential role of maternal emotional dysregulation and mother-to-child attachment in the intergenerational continuity of specific maltreatment types (Objective 1) as well as cumulative child maltreatment (Objective 2) among mother–young adult dyads. Method: A sample of 186 mothers and their young adult children (18–25 years old) completed an online survey measuring child maltreatment, attachment, maternal emotional dysregulation, and sociodemographic characteristics. The Canadian Survey of Economic Well-Being—Index of Material Deprivation was used to document mothers’ material deprivation. Results: Path analyses revealed that physical neglect was the maltreatment type in the mothers’ childhood that was the most consistently associated with their emotional dysregulation, attachment, and maltreatment in the next generation. Direct trajectories elucidating the homotypic and heterotypic continuity of child maltreatment were identified. A multigroup analysis revealed significant differences between the nondeprived and deprived groups for Objective 1. Regarding Objective 2, indirect paths indicated that an increase in the number of child maltreatment types that were experienced by mothers was associated with increased emotional dysregulation, which was negatively associated with attachment. In turn, attachment was negatively associated with cumulative child maltreatment in young adults. Conclusions: The present study highlights the importance of including neglect in studies of intergenerational continuity and of exploring the role of material deprivation in depth. The damage caused by cumulative child maltreatment is supported by our findings. Screening for past maltreatment experiences and their impacts on maternal functioning may be warranted when working with distressed families.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.001 | 0.006 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.002 | 0.002 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".