| Description: |
Childhood maltreatment has been linked to biased internal working models that contribute to later social problems. It is unclear, however, how internal working models influence actual peer encounters in real-time. In this preregistered study, N = 133 adolescents and young adults (n = 65 maltreated; 11–24 years) from a longitudinal cohort played Cyberball ostensibly with two peers, both introduced before the game via descriptive statements: The Target peer was constructed to implicitly resemble participant’s one of the parents, and the Control peer resembled someone else’s parent. We recorded event-related cardiac slowing during my-turn (micro-inclusion) and not-my-turn (micro-exclusion) events. We observed differential cardiac responses to the two peers, which further varied by maltreatment status and age. During micro-exclusion, nonmaltreated participants showed greater cardiac slowing to Target, whereas maltreated participants showed greater cardiac slowing to Control, suggesting that participants selectively generalized their expectations. Cardiac slowing to Target was most pronounced in younger participants and diminished with age, suggesting that parental cues exert a stronger influence on peer interactions at younger ages. Together, our findings suggest that cardiac slowing can index rapid processing of representation-based expectations during social interactions and may thus constitute a mechanism by which internal models impact social functioning. |