Abstract
The goal of this study was to examine environmental (childhood physical abuse) and genetic (5-HTTLPR genotype) correlates of adult women’s attentional biases for facial displays of emotion. Supporting a gene × environment model of risk, women’s reports of childhood physical abuse were related to their attentional biases for angry faces among carriers of the 5-HTTLPR short allele, but not among those homozygous for the long allele. Specifically, women reporting a history of moderate to severe physical abuse who also carried at least one copy of the 5-HTTLPR short allele exhibited attentional avoidance of angry faces. These results were specific to angry faces and were not observed for happy or sad faces. Supporting the robustness of these findings, they were maintained even after statistically controlling for the influence of women’s lifetime diagnoses of major depression and anxiety disorders as well as their current symptoms of depression and anxiety, suggesting that the results were not due simply to current or past depression or anxiety.
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Notes
The similarity in effect size \( \left( {\eta_{p}^{2} } \right) \) in these analyses across the two genotype groups suggests the possibility that the nonsignificant result among women homozygous for the 5-HTTLPR long allele was due, in part, to the smaller size of this subsample. Given this, exploratory analyses were conducted to test for potential physical abuse group differences in attentional biases for the three facial expressions among these women. Among women homozygous for the 5-HTTLPR long allele, tests of simple main effects within Facial Expression type revealed no significant physical abuse differences for angry, F(1, 29) = 0.69, p = 0.41, \( \eta_{p}^{2} = 0.02 \), happy, F(1, 29) = 2.87, p = 0.10, \( \eta_{p}^{2} = 0.09 \), or sad, F(1, 29) = 0.11, p = 0.75, \( \eta_{p}^{2} = 0.00 4 \) faces.
Although not the primary focus of this study, we also examined whether women’s current or lifetime diagnoses of MDD and/or anxiety disorders were related to attentional biases for any of the facial expressions. None of these analyses was significant, nor did diagnostic status significantly interact with abuse history of 5-HTTLPR genotype to predict attentional biases.
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Acknowledgments
This project was supported by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development grant HD048664 and by funding from the Center for Developmental Psychobiology, Binghamton University, awarded to the B. E. Gibb.
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Johnson, A.L., Gibb, B.E. & McGeary, J. Reports of Childhood Physical Abuse, 5-HTTLPR Genotype, and Women’s Attentional Biases for Angry Faces. Cogn Ther Res 34, 380–387 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9269-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10608-009-9269-3