Naughty or clumsy? Negative parental attributions in the context of child abuse risk

In support of efforts to develop effective intervention and prevention programs to reduce (the devastating consequences of) child maltreatment, it is important to understand the origins of child maltreatment. Why do some parents use dysfunctional parenting strategies and others do not? Different research angles have been of guidance in tracking down the etiology of child maltreatment (e.g., stress-regulation, intergenerational transmission, attachment security). An influential line of thought is that parental responses to child behavior depend on the way parents interpret and evaluate child behavior, also known as parental attributions. Milner (1993, 2003) incorporated parental attributions as key component in the Social Information Processing (SIP) model of Child Physical Abuse (CPA). The model explains how parental cognitions (e.g., perceptions, attributions) and affective schemata based on prior experiences, guide parenting behavior. The model hypothesizes that parents who attribute more responsibility and hostile intent to child behavior, and evaluate the behavior as more wrong and blameworthy, are parents who are at risk for child abuse. In this dissertation, negative parental attributions and their interrelated components as theorized by the SIP-model, are the main focus of investigation in a quest to improve our understanding of the etiology of dysfunctional parenting, and subsequently child maltreatment.