Emotional Reactivity and the Emergence of Conduct Problems and Emotional Symptoms in 7- to 11-Years-Olds: A 1-Year Follow-Up Study

• NCJ Number: 222819
• Journal: Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry Volume: 47 Issue: 5 Dated: May 2008 Pages: 565-573
• Author(s): Carla Sharp Ph.D.; Nancy Petersen Ph.D.; Ian Goodyer M.D.
• Date Published: May 2008
• Length: 9 pages
• Publication Format: Article
• Publication Type: Report (Study/Research)
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

This article examines whether individual differences in emotional reactivity predicted high levels of conduct problems and/or emotional (depressive and anxiety) symptoms at 1-year followup.

Abstract

The findings suggest that adults with antisocial personality disorder, specifically those with psychopathic features, show an abnormal psychophysiological response to aversive picture stimuli. Within the group of children who show antisocial and aggressive behavior, there may be some groups that differ in part as a consequence of their lowered emotional responsiveness to environmental stimuli and that may be indifferent to the feelings of others and possess higher levels of callous unemotional traits. Decreased emotional reactivity to aversive stimuli may be a component of these traits and a predictor of emerging clinically meaningful antisocial behavior. A link was found between increased arousal to neutral pictures and anxiety symptoms in children at followup. Increased arousal to neutral stimuli may index increased an abnormal threat perception. It has been demonstrated that high levels of general and state anxiety are significantly related to increased threat perception and lower threat thresholds in children when subjects are presented with ambiguous stimuli. The findings suggest a possible new approach to prevention or decrease in risk for conduct and anxiety problems in pre-pubertal children. Detecting children with low emotional arousal and increased risk for conduct problems and implementing a training strategy might improve motion recognition and normative emotional responses. Second, these findings may be used to inform detection of over aroused children who may be at increased risk for anxiety disorders and may benefit from exposure training to feared stimuli. Data were collected from 659 children aged 7 to 11 who were studied for 1 year. Tables, references