Response to Emotional Stimuli in Boys With Conduct Disorder

Abstract

Although the self-report data supported a deficit in reactivity to explicit fear cues, the psychophysiological data indicated that boys with conduct disorder both with and without a comorbid condition of ADHD are characterized by a generalized deficit in autonomic responsivity in an experimental situation in which children were exposed to complex visual stimuli of unpredictable affective quality. Psychophysiological findings may point to a deficit in associative information processing systems that normally produce adaptive cognitive-emotional reactions.

Dissociation of sad facial expressions and autonomic nervous system responding in boys with disruptive behavior disorders

“…These findings extend to a number of stimulus conditions, including (a) responding for monetary incentives, (b) viewing escalating conflict scenes among child actors, and (c) viewing both pleasant (pictures of pets or family scenes) and unpleasant (pictures of wounded children and violent scenes) images (e.g., Beauchaine et al, 2001;Herpertz et al, 2005). In the only study in which autonomic reactivity was assessed specifically during distress cues in such a population, Blair (1999) reported lower skin conductance responses to expressive emotional slides (e.g., a person crying) among clinicreferred children with psychopathic tendencies compared with controls.…”

“…There is now a growing body of literature suggesting that children and adolescents with DBDs have difficulties with several domains of empathic responding, including emotional processing and self-appraisals of emotional experiences (de Wied, Goudena, & Matthys, 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al, 2005;Strand & Nowicki, 1999). However, other components of empathic responding such as displays of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity have only begun to receive empirical attention (Blair, 1999;de Wied et al, 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al, 2005).…”

“…There is now a growing body of literature suggesting that children and adolescents with DBDs have difficulties with several domains of empathic responding, including emotional processing and self-appraisals of emotional experiences (de Wied, Goudena, & Matthys, 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al, 2005;Strand & Nowicki, 1999). However, other components of empathic responding such as displays of sad facial expressions and autonomic reactivity have only begun to receive empirical attention (Blair, 1999;de Wied et al, 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al, 2005).Functionalist theories of emotion suggests that the synchronization of emotional response systems plays a critical role in emotional health and that desynchronization contributes to the emergence and maintenance of psychopathology (see Ekman, 1992;Kring, Kerr, Smith, & Neale, 1993;Levenson, 1994;Mauss, Levenson, McCarter, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2005;Sloan, Strauss, Quirk, & Sajatovic, 1997). According to this perspective, as emotions unfold over time, the coordination of emotional appraisal, expressive behavior, and physiological responses should improve the reliability and precision of emotion cues and promote efficient behavioral and social responses (Levenson, 1994 (Feldman-Barrett, 2006), with some authors finding low to moderate correlations between experiential, behavioral, and physiological response domains (Buck, 1977;Gross & Levenson, 1993,1997Kettunen, Ravaja, Näätänen, Keltikangas-Jarvinen, 2000;Lanzetta, Cartwright-Smith, & Kleck, 1976;Mauss et al, 2005), others reporting discrepancies in the direction of effects (Notarius & Levenson, 1979), and still others reporting no relationship at all (Mauss, Wilhelm, & Gross, 2004).…”

“…Furthermore, clinically identified children diagnosed with CD do not decode emotion in faces as well as age-matched controls (Strand & Nowicki, 1999). Youth with DBDs also self-report lower emotional arousal in response to affective pictures and describe fewer concordant emotional responses to other's expressions of affect, particularly sadness and anger (de Wied et al 2005;Douglas & Strayer, 1996;Herpertz et al, 2005). These findings are not surprising given the extent to which emotional sensitivity conflicts with aggressive or otherwise delinquent acts that are characteristic of these youth (Beauchaine, Gartner, & Hagen, 2000;Blair, 1995).…”

Personality Correlates of Physiological Response to Stress Among Incarcerated Juveniles

“…This finding suggests that there is a biological component to the development of aggression but it is obvious that individual and social factors can affect or otherwise mitigate biological propensity. More recently, Herpertz and colleagues in studying boys with conduct disorder who have co-morbid ADHD found that conduct disorder correlates with lower emotional reactivity and overall lower autonomic arousal (Herpertz et al 2005).…”