Emotional neglect and its consequences for the socioemotional development of adolescents

• Grant number: 17/02654-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: May 01, 2017
• End date: December 31, 2018
• Field of knowledge: Humanities - Psychology - Human Development Psychology
• Principal Investigator: Elizabeth Joan Barham
• Grantee: Thalita Nicolau Freire
• Host Institution: Centro de Educação e Ciências Humanas (CECH). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Parental emotional neglect is a type of maltreatment that has gained attention in recent years, as it is thought to have far-reaching and long-term consequences on child development. However, there is currently little evidence that can be used to more clearly specify the relationship between emotional neglect and indicators of child development. Considering the topography of emotional neglect, one can hypothesize that a history of emotional neglect would affect an adolescent's attachment style, empathic capacity and emotional regulation abilities. If this hypothesis is correct, there should be correlations among these variables. Thus, these variables will be evaluated in approximately 80 adolescents, using three instruments: (a) the Childhood Trauma Questionnaire, to identify the level of emotional neglect that adolescents report having suffered in childhood; (b) the Inventário de Vinculação na Adolescência, to evaluate adolescents' attachment style with parents and peers, and (c) the Inventário de Habilidades Sociais para Adolescentes - Del Prette, which, along with other abilities, can be used to assess empathetic and emotional regulation skills. After verifying the normality of the distribution of scores for each variable, the strength of the relationship between emotional neglect and the other variables will be evaluated by means of the Pearson (for parametric data) or Spearman (for non-parametric data) correlation index, to decide whether the study hypothesis should be rejected, or not. If there is a significant relationship among these variables, this study will confirm the importance of emotional-neglect prevention intervention-programs, and of efforts to identify children who suffer emotional neglect. (AU)