AbstractAlthough not all abused children grow up to be abusive parents, it is well known that people who were severely mistreated by their parents as compared to those who were not are at higher risk for mistreating their children. It has also been shown that abusive parents often have unrealistic expectations for their children—expectations based on distorted perceptions of their children's needs, feelings, and abilities. In this paper, we examine the utility of new methods developed in social psychology to study: (1) the impact of abuse on the structure and content of interpersonal and self‐perception and (2) the interrelationships among an abused mother's social and self‐perception, the quality of her interactions with her child, and the child's development. Case studies will be presented to illustrate how these new methods reflect risk for abuse as predicted independently by clinicians treating the