Features
Link Between Child Maltreatment, Adolescent Depression Under Study
It's important for people to understand the long-term consequences of abuse and neglect in childhood, says psychology prof
BY TERESA PITMAN
 |
| Prof. Margaret Lumley, Psychology, hopes her research will improve kids' lives. Photo by Martin Schwalbe |
Travel can be a way to relax, soak up some sun or get away from responsibilities at home or work. It can also be a conduit to new discoveries and new perspectives.
For Prof. Margaret Lumley, Psychology, travel is a passion. She's been to Italy “as often as I can,” to other parts of Europe, to Mexico, Bermuda, Cuba and the South Pacific, and across the United States and Canada. She and her family also hosted many international students during her PhD studies at Queen's University. These international experiences have given her a chance to encounter other ways of life and see how other societies differ from her own. Those discoveries, in turn, influence her research.
To understand that influence, you have to back up a few steps.
Lumley's research in recent years has involved the link between child maltreatment — abuse and neglect — and adolescent depression. It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that children who have been abused or neglected are much more likely to be depressed when they enter their teen years.
She's drawn to this field of research in part because “it has the potential to improve people's lives. When I talk about it, people quickly see how it can be applied to intervention.”
Although there's more awareness of child maltreatment these days, she notes that it's still a significant problem, with more than 60,000 reported cases in Canada every year and many more that go unreported. Interviews with adolescents and young adults have revealed much higher levels of abuse and neglect in childhood, and she thinks it's important for people to understand the long-term consequences.
“What I wanted to look at was the mechanism of this process. I wanted to find out how maltreatment of children translates into later depression for some children and not for others.”
Here's what she found: When children are treated badly, they develop core beliefs about themselves that may shape how they think about themselves, interact with others and perceive the world.
“For example, a child who is repeatedly hit may come to believe that the world is a dangerous place and others may hurt him at any time. This can lead to an anxious approach to life. Another child who's been maltreated may come to believe she's unlovable and unworthy, which can lead to depression.”
Lumley also found that childhood maltreatment is associated with tightly organized or connected negative beliefs and loosely organized positive beliefs. That means if the child begins to think: “I am a failure,” then his or her other negative self-beliefs are more easily activated, such as feeling unworthy and defective. In contrast, if positive core beliefs are loosely organized, their activation won't be widely felt. She's interested in examining how this organization of core beliefs develops across childhood and into adolescence.
Now comes the multicultural part: “I'm interested in seeing how this varies depending on the culture,” says Lumley. “In our studies, people with Asian or South Asian backgrounds reported higher levels of critical parenting. We need to understand what that means in their culture — the context is important.”
She also suspects that cultural beliefs can sometimes protect children from the negative effects of some kinds of maltreatment. If a culture places a high value on family relationships, for example, a child who is bullied at school may not be as affected, as long as he or she feels supported within the family.
Lumley's interest in travel is also intertwined with family. The reason she's made so many trips to Italy is that most of her father's family still lives there. She says those journeys help her understand her own family's culture as well as learn more about ways of life that are different from hers.