Maternal sensitivity buffers the adrenocortical implications of intimate partner violence exposure during early childhood

Leah C. Hibel · Douglas Alan Granger · Clancy Blair · Martha J. Cox

77 citations0/0 files storedDevelopment and Psychopathology

No readable copy stored yet — this record is metadata only.

No open-access location is known for this record yet.

Literature note Cite in a project Citation map

Intimate Partner and Family Violence Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development Child Abuse and Trauma

Abstract

This study prospectively examined the effect of intimate partner violence (IPV) on adrenocortical reactivity and recovery during early childhood. The sample (n = 1102 mother-infant dyads; 49.2% male) was racially diverse and from predominantly low-income, rural communities. To measure IPV exposure mothers completed the Conflicts Tactics Scale, and her caretaking behaviors were observed when her child was approximately 7, 15, and 24 months of age. Children's saliva samples, later assayed for cortisol, were collected around challenge tasks designed to elicit emotional reactivity. IPV was related to a trajectory of increased cortisol reactivity from infancy to toddlerhood. By contrast, the trajectory for non-IPV-exposed children decreased in cortisol reactivity across 7 to 24 months of age. At the 24-month assessment, on average, toddlers did not exhibit a cortisol reaction; however, those exposed to high levels of violence continued to have reactivity. Accumulative levels of IPV across the first 2 years of life predicted cortisol reactivity at 24 months of age. Early (7-month) sensitive maternal behavior moderated this relationship, so that only children exposed to both early insensitivity and high accumulated IPV exhibited increased reactivity at the 24-month assessment. Findings are discussed in relation to the risky family framework.

Paper brief

Loading…

Cite this work

Citation unavailable for this work.

BibTeX RIS CSL-JSON

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Citations in this library

Citation map →

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 77 citations exist upstream.

References

1996The Revised Conflict Tactics Scales (CTS2)2008Adaptation and Natural Selection 1992Shattered Assumptions: Towards a New Psychology of Trauma 2002Risky families: Family social environments and the mental and physical health of offspring.1994Economic Stress, Coercive Family Process, and Developmental Problems of Adolescents 1983Sociological Methodology 1982 1994Marital conflict and child adjustment: An emotional security hypothesis.1990Mechanisms in the Cycle of Violence

Cited by

2014Stress and Child Development 2018Maternal sensitivity, its relationship with child outcomes, and interventions that address it: a systematic literature review 2015Social Support and Developmental Psychopathology 2020Child maltreatment in the time of the COVID-19 pandemic: A proposed global framework on research, policy and practice 2023Developmental Consequences of Intimate Partner Violence on Children 2017The legacy of early childhood violence exposure to adulthood intimate partner violence: Variable- and person-oriented evidence.

Explore the map →

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.

Imported from OpenAlex (CC0) — nothing here is generated.