Autonomic conditioning to monetary and social stimuli and aggression in children

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

3-1-2018

Abstract

Poor conditioning to punishment, such as loud tones or electric shock, has been proposed as an important factor involved in the etiology of aggressive and psychopathic behavior. However, it is not known whether the association holds when monetary or social stimulus is used as the unconditioned stimulus, and if aggressive individuals also have impaired conditioning to rewards. In this study, skin conductance responses in a conditioning task involving both monetary/social reward and punishment as unconditioned stimuli were assessed in 340 male and female 8- to 9-year-old children from the community. Children reported their reactive and proactive aggression using the Reactive and Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ; Raine et al., 2006). Results showed that monetary/social reward and punishment were effective in eliciting physiological classical conditioning in children, and that reduced reward conditioning was associated with high levels of proactive aggression in particular. Findings highlight the importance of distinguishing between reactive and proactive aggression when examining antisocial behavior in children, and suggest that reward-oriented treatment programs may not be effective for children with more proactive, instrumental aggressive behavior.

Identifier

85032996505 (Scopus)

Publication Title

Aggressive Behavior

External Full Text Location

https://doi.org/10.1002/ab.21738

e-ISSN

10982337

ISSN

0096140X

PubMed ID

29098703

First Page

147

Last Page

155

Issue

2

Volume

44

Grant

SC3GM118233

Fund Ref

National Institutes of Health

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