NCJ Number
170929
Journal
Child Abuse and Neglect Volume: 22 Issue: 3 Dated: (March 1998) Pages: 183-195
Date Published
1998
Length
13 pages
Annotation
This study examined the impact of childhood physical abuse on self-concept and social competency of older adolescents and assessed perception of parental relationships as a mediator for consequences of abuse on social adjustment.
Abstract
A total of 600 college undergraduates completed the Social Skills Inventory, a measure of social competence; the Self- Description Questionnaire-III, a multidimensional measure of self-concept; the parent scales of the Inventory of Parent and Peer Attachment, a measure of perceived parental support; and the Assessing Environments-III, a retrospective report on family environment and parenting practices. Controlling for socioeconomic status and ethnicity, the analyses show that a history of physical abuse was predictive of current self-concept, but it did not predict social competence as an older adolescent. Further analyses lend support to a mediation model, suggesting that physical abuse has a negative impact on self-concept through its negative effect on parent-child relationships. Thus, physically abusive experiences in childhood results in a perception of lower levels of support from parents, which, in turn, leads to a poorer self-concept. Future research should focus on corroboration of self-reports of childhood abuse with more objective data; however, self-report studies do provide valuable information about subjects' perceptions of childhood discipline events. 1 figure, 2 tables, and 34 references