Human Services News

From EurekAlert! - Breaking News:

Abused children may have a difficult time developing adult relationships with new people who reminded them of their abusive parent, even if only implicitly, according to a recent study published in the November issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, an official publication of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, published by SAGE Publications.

Among participants who had been abused, however, this was accompanied by negative reactions as well, such as expectations for rejection, mistrust, dislike, and emotional distancing.

Notably, no such pattern occurred among abused participants when the new person bore no resemblance to the parent (a control condition).

Researchers additionally found that the abused participants reported a decrease in negative mood when the new person resembling the parent was also described as explicitly threatening (as compared to when there was no explicit threat).

"A possible interpretation of this," write the authors, is that this may have evoked, for abused individuals, their "well-practiced affective responses to threat.

Berenson and Andersen conclude that the process of transference can lead previously abused individuals to use behavioral patterns from their relationship with the abusive parent in later interpersonal relationships, even when such patterns may be inappropriate or ineffective for the current interpersonal situation.

SAGE Publications is a leading international publisher of journals, books, and electronic media for academic, educational, and professional markets.

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