Purposes: Psychological maltreatment is one of the most common yet often underrecognized forms of child abuse. It has a negative impact on the development of children’s body and mind, but the mechanisms of psychological abuse and the development of children are unknown. So the main object of this study was to explore the attentional bias for facial expression of the adults with childhood history of psychological maltreatment. Methods: Cluster sampling was applied in this study while 390 college students were chosen from Harbin Normal University. The Child Psychological Maltreatment Scale was tested in this investigation and 376 valid questionnaires were received. Then 18 students (8 male and 10 female) with psychological maltreatment and 19 students (8 male and 11 female) without psychological maltreatment were selected to take part in the dot-probe task experiment. The stimuli in the dot-probe task were 40 paired facial expressions (negative-neural, positive-neural) which were presented in random order. In this experiment, the presentation duration of the paired stimuli was 800ms, then a dot was showed and the participants reacted to it, press F while the dot was at the left and press J while the dot was at the right. The experiment used 2 (groups: maltreated and controlled) ×2 (facial types: positive and negative) ×2 (consistency: consistent and inconsistent) mixed design on the index of reaction time and used 2 (groups: maltreated and controlled) ×2 (facial types: positive and negative)) mixed design on the index of attention bias score. All stimuli were presented through E-prime program in order to obtain participants’ reaction time. The statistical analyses were performed with SPSS 18.0. Results：The reaction time were analyzed with Repeated Measurement ANOVA and the results showed that the main effects in facial types (F=17.362, p<.001, power=0.982), consistency (F=55.829, p<.001, power=1.000) and the interaction effect among group, facial types and consistency (F=9.624，p<.001, power=0.855) were found. Further analysis showed that psychological abused individuals reacted more slowly when position of the dot wasn’t in consistent with neglect facial expresses (468.094±37.012) than when the position of the dot wasn’t in consistent with positive facial expresses (409.144±44.896); the attention bias scores were analyzed with Repeated Measurement ANOVA and the results showed that the main effects in groups (F=31.098, p<.001, power=1.000) and facial types (F=32.361, p<.001, power=1.000) , and the interaction effect among group and facial types (F=9.624, p<.001, power=.855) were found, that is, there was significant difference between groups and between facial types, respectively. Further analysis showed attention bias scores of psychological abused group to negative facial expression was significantly higher than that of the controlled group. Conclusions: College students who experienced psychological maltreatment in childhood had attentional bias to negative facial expression.