The Influence of Genes, Aggression, and Emotional Dysfunctions in Criminal Behavior

Session Submission Type: Complete Thematic Panel

Abstract

This symposium broadly focuses on risk factors that contribute to psychopathic traits, aggression, and antisocial behaviors. Each of these studies either measure antisocial and criminal behaviors or examine emotional deficits in individuals who often engage in these behaviors. One study focuses on how serotonergic genes serve as risk and protective factors for antisocial behaviors; one focuses on the associations between types of aggression (proactive or reactive), types of crime (white or blue collar), and psychopathy; and two studies focus on emotional recognition in posed versus natural pictures of faces in aggressive individuals, specifically those higher in psychopathic traits. These papers provide valuable information regarding biopsychosocial risk factors (e.g., genes, emotion recognition dysfunctions, type of aggression) that contribute to antisocial and criminal behaviors. Improving our understanding of the mechanisms underlying associations between genes, aggression, psychopathy, emotion recognition, and antisocial behavior is needed to accurately predict criminal behaviors as well as reduce crime via interventions specifically devised to target these risk factors.

Sub Unit

• Area IV. Correlates of Crime / 10. Mental Health

Individual Presentations

• Psychopathy and the Detection of Insincere Facial Expressions - Leah Efferson, University of Alabama; Andrea Glenn, University of Alabama; Rebecca Kastner, Minnesota State Operated Forensic Services

• Emotion Judgment Accuracy in Posed Versus Naturalistic Facial Expressions - Rheanna Remmel, University of Alabama; Andrea Glenn, University of Alabama

• Proactive-Reactive Aggression and White-Blue Collar Crime: A Double Dissociation - Ling Shichun, University of Pennsylvania; Adrian Raine, University of Pennsylvania; Robert Schug, California State University, Long Beach

• Evidence of Cumulative Serotonergic Genes as Both Risk and Protective Factors for Delinquency in Adolescence and Adulthood - Stephanie Langevin, University of Montreal and Montreal Mental Health University Institute; Sara Mascheretti, Child Psychopathology Unit, Scientific Institute, IRCCS Eugenio Medea; Isabelle Ouellet-Morin, University of Montreal and Montreal Mental Health University Institute