This study examined how parental risk of child physical abuse and exposure to hostile words influences responses to infant crying. Parents at high risk of abuse rated an infant more negatively and reported greater feelings of hostility after watching a crying infant video compared to low risk parents. High risk parents primed with hostile words before watching reported the most hostility. The results suggest that infant crying may provoke more negative and hostile responses in high risk parents, especially when also exposed to hostile cues.

1. Parental Responses to Infant Crying: The Influence of Child Physical Abuse Risk and Hostile Priming Matthew Chang Brittany Warrington Lisa Kline PSYC 308 October 14, 2008

4. Methods BACKGROUND INFORMATION: N= 84 (38.6% Male, 61.4% Female) Mean age: 31.7 years 44.6% African American 48.2% Caucasian 7.2% Latino 68.7% Not married Mean # of children: 1.9 53.8% High school education of less MATERIALS: ~ Child Abuse Potential (CAP) Inventory- 160 item, agree/disagree questionnaire designed to screen for CPA risk ~ Scrambled Sentence Task- 12 sets of scrambled words under two conditions each: Hostile priming condition & Neutral priming condition; Parents must make scrambled words into complete sentence ~ Infant Videos- Three 2-minute videos of an infant in three states: crying, quiet, or smiling ~ Negative Trait Rating Task- Parents asked to rate child depicted in each video on 9 traits on 10-point scale ~ Hostile Feelings- Emotional Reactions Questionnaire (ERQ) ~ Hand Grip Modulation Task- measures parent’s ability to modulate hand grip to half strength

5. Methods 1. Sentence Unscrambling Task 2. Viewing of infant video segments with hand grip task 3. Trait ratings following each video segment 4. Rate feelings following video segments by completing ERQ 5. Parents complete CAP Inventory

6. Results Negative Infant Trait Rating Task

7. Results Hostile Feelings Ratings – Priming & Infant State Conditions

8. Results Hostile Feelings Ratings - High & Low Risk Parents Across Priming & Infant State Conditions