How Do Child Abuse and Neglect Affect Social Relationships?
Stress in childhood leads to more stress and fewer relationships later in life.
Experiencing child maltreatment can lead to greater stress in relationships later in life.
Child maltreatment can lead to fewer social relationships and poorer quality social relationships.
Evidence-based therapy can help individuals who experienced maltreatment develop positive social relationships.
First published by Dr. Doom on PsychologyToday.com
Why do some people have more trouble starting and maintaining positive, healthy relationships than others? One possible reason is experiencing trauma during childhood.
Research tells us that a child who has experienced maltreatment (abuse or neglect) is more likely to have problems creating and maintaining positive relationships than a child who has not. Having fewer and poorer quality relationships may be one reason individuals who experience maltreatment in childhood are more likely to struggle with mental and physical health problems during their lifetime.
A new paper in The Lancet Psychiatry introduces a new theory explaining why people who have experienced maltreatment are more likely to struggle with social relationships (McCrory et al., 2022). The authors argue that maltreatment leads to changes in the brain and behavior that can lead to poorer relationships through two processes described below: 1 ) stress generation and 2) social thinning.
Stress Generation
A child who has experienced maltreatment may react negatively when they feel angry or sad, get into fights, and struggle with violence in relationships as they age. Children who have experienced maltreatment may be more likely to have strong negative reactions to large and small frustrations or have difficulty regulating emotions.
They might also perceive neutral things that are not intended to be aggression as being negative and intentional. For example, if someone bumps into them, they may be more likely to think it was intentional and react negatively to that interpretation by pushing them back instead of walking away. This type of response can lead to greater stress in relationships.
These ways in which individuals who have been maltreated may inadvertently increase the number of negative or stressful things they experience are called stress generation.
We shouldn’t blame individuals for adapting to the traumatic things that have happened to them. We should focus on helping them to adapt better to social relationships. For example, it may have made sense for a child to react negatively to things that other children might not notice, as that extra attention and action may keep them safe in situations where they’ve experienced abuse. Instead, it is better to focus on getting individuals into safer situations and helping them develop skills for positive social relationships.
Social Thinning
A child might avoid social relationships because they worry that others may be making fun of them or don’t understand their jokes. That child may avoid social situations, which makes it hard for them to create and maintain friendships over time. Children who have experienced maltreatment report fewer friendships than children who were not maltreated, and they’re more likely to be bullied. This lack of high-quality social relationships in childhood and adolescence can lead to more problems with relationships and fewer relationships as they age.
This process of losing or never developing social relationships or having poorer quality relationships over time is called social thinning.
How to Improve Relationships Following Trauma Exposure
The processes of stress generation and social thinning can lead to lifelong problems with relationships without intervention. It’s important for caregivers, teachers, and anyone who interacts with children who may have been maltreated to know that:
Children or teens may get into fights or isolate themselves because they haven’t developed the skills to maintain positive social relationships.
It’s important to teach children and teens more positive ways to interact and give them many opportunities for positive interactions with peers and adults.
Adults should help children or teens see a therapist specializing in child trauma, as this can be an excellent way to give them tools to cope with past traumas, better regulate their emotions, and form positive social relationships.
For adults, it’s not too late to improve relationship skills. Good strategies include going to individual therapy to practice social and emotional skills, and if you have a partner, attending couples therapy to develop the tools to improve your social skills and relationship quality together.
To find a therapist near you, visit the Psychology Today Therapy Directory.
References
McCrory, E., Foulkes, L., & Viding, E. (2022). Social thinning and stress generation after childhood maltreatment: a neurocognitive social transactional model of psychiatric vulnerability. The Lancet Psychiatry.