Differences in Inhibitory Control between Impulsive and Premeditated Aggression in Juvenile Inmates

Abstract

Inhibitory control dysfunction was considered a universal characteristic of violent offenders. The aim of this study was to examine differences in inhibitory control between two subtypes of violent youth; those displaying predominantly impulsive and those presenting predominantly premeditated aggression (PM). Forty-four juvenile offenders, defined on the basis of the Procedures for the Classification of Aggressive/Violent Acts (Stanford and Barratt, 2001) participated (N = 23: impulsive; N = 21 premeditated). A visual Go/NoGo task was used to compare behavioral responses and event-related potentials (ERPs) between groups. The task contained two letters (W and M), W was the Go stimulus and M the NoGo stimulus. The impulsive youth showed a significantly greater decrease in N2 latency for Go relative to NoGo trials than the premeditated aggressive youth. The differentiation in N2 amplitude between Go and NoGo (N2d) was negatively correlated with impulsivity of aggression. Both groups showed no significant central NoGo P3. Our findings suggest that impulsive violent youth show stronger prepotent responses and impaired conflict monitoring during early inhibitory control processing relative to premeditated aggressive youth. Both impulsive and premeditated violent youth may show impaired response inhibition at the late processing stage of inhibitory control.

Reactive Aggression Affects Response Inhibition to Angry Expressions in Adolescents: An Event-Related Potential Study Using the Emotional Go/No-Go Paradigm

“…Previous studies using non-emotional Go/No-go tasks have found that the N2 Go/No-go difference wave is negatively correlated with impulsivity in aggression in juvenile violent offenders, and impulsive violent offenders demonstrate a smaller amplitude in the N2 Go/No-go difference wave relative to matched controls (Chen et al, 2005;Zhang et al, 2017). The present study recruited participants from the normal population and used the emotional Go/No-go paradigm.…”

“…Reactive aggression is characterized by a spontaneous emotion-driven response to perceived provocation, while proactive aggression, on the other hand, is characterized by deliberate, non-emotional behavior to obtain a specified goal (Crick and Dodge, 1996). Response inhibition was found to be related to reactive aggression but not to proactive aggression (Zhang et al, 2017).…”

“…Response inhibition involves the ability to inhibit maladaptive behavior (Luijten et al, 2011) and is thought to be one of the core psychological mechanisms contributing to reactive aggression in adolescents. Empirical studies have revealed impaired response inhibition in reactively aggressive adolescents (Zhang et al, 2017;Hecht and Latzman, 2018). Research on response inhibition suggests that response inhibition may be a flexible resource that is usually in a dormant state but can be awakened in particular contexts, such as a hostile situation (Wilkowski and Robinson, 2010).…”

Parental Education and Youth Inhibitory Control in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study: Blacks’ Diminished Returns

“…Low IC may be one of the reasons why youth from low socioeconomic status (SES) and racial and ethnic minority groups engage in more risky behaviors, compared to high SES and majority youth [1,[13][14][15][16]. Thus, studies are needed that investigate the additive effects of race/ethnicity and SES on youth IC as a mechanism of disparities and inequalities in high-risk behaviors [1,10,[17][18][19].…”

Serotonin and aggressive behaviour in children and adolescents: a systematic review

“…Aggression is a heterogeneous behavioural phenomenon both in form (physical, verbal, relational), function (defensive, instrumental) and implementation (with or without premeditation) . Throughout childhood and adolescence, overt physical aggression peaks and individual differences stabilize, and only a subgroup of children who are highly aggressive in early childhood remain so in later life, as desistance in physical aggression over childhood is well‐established .…”