Child Maltreatment: A Test of Sociobiological Theory

Abstract

Five hypotheses regarding child maltreatment were derived from sociobiological theory and tested using data on 69,119 families and 113,748 abused children. It was predicted that: I) nonbiological parents would engage. in more severe types of abuse than would biological parents; 2) in two-biological-parent households, biological fathers would maltreat their progeny more than would biological mothers; 3) biological parents would abuse their progeny while their children were very young, whereas nonbiological parents would not show a predictable age-related pattern of abuse; 4) when biological parents from poorer families abused their progeny, the victims would tend to be male, whereas when biological parents from more affluent families abused their progeny, the victims would tend to be female; and 5) children Ii vino with female relatives who were past their reproductive prime would be at low risk for abuse. Only two of these hypotheses were supported: biological parents abused younger rather than older children, whereas nonbiological parents did not show a predictable age-related pattern of abuse; and female relatives past their reproductive prime tended to commit less severe types of abuse than did female relatives still reproductively capable.