Motivated Attention to Social and Non-Social Reward Stimuli: Exploring Gender-Related Risk of Externalizing Problems in Children

• In Event: 2-182 - Gender Differences in Psychophysiological Measures of Emotion Reactivity and Self-Regulated Behaviors

Integrative Statement

Childhood externalizing issues (e.g., aggression) are disproportionally prevalent in males versus females (Liu, 2004). Although this distinction is theorized to result from gender differences underlying emotional and motivational processes (Chaplin & Aldao, 2013; Krahe, 2017; Nolen-Hoeksema, 2012), the mechanisms involved are not completely understood. One potential contributing factor could be gender differences in neural processing underlying motivated attention toward social and non-social reward cues. Prior work in adults and adolescents suggests that females ‘tune-in’ to social reward more than males, indicating that males find social cues less motivationally salient (Greimel et al., 2018; Proverbio et al., 2008; Spreckelmeyer et al., 2009). Since attending to motivational social cues is important for the development of social-emotional skills (Chevallier et al, 2012; Over, 2015; Rudoph et al., 2013), diminished motivation to socially rewarding cues in males may influence gender-related risk for externalizing problems. However, few studies have examined gender differences in social and non-social reward processing in children and potential associations with behavior problems. The present study aimed to close this gap by exploring gender-related differences in neural correlates of social and nonsocial reward processing as measured via the late positive potential (LPP). The LPP is a prominent event-related potential (ERP) that indexes motivational salience of affective stimuli (Schupp et al., 2000) and is sensitive to gender differences in emotion (Kato &Takeda, 2017) and reward processing (Glazer et al., 2018).
Fifty-three children (27 males), ranging from 6-10 years old (Mage=8.32 years, completed a picture-viewing task using a novel, developmentally-appropriate stimuli set of social and non-social reward images. Stimuli were comprised of four categories: 1) interpersonal social reward, depicting positive social interactions, 2) intrapersonal social reward, depicting happy people with no social interactions (e.g., smiling children), 3) object-based reward which represented non-social rewards (e.g., treats), and 4) a comparison neutral category. Children viewed 168 images over 4 blocks and rated their valence and arousal. Electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded throughout the task and the LPP was processed and compared for each image category. Parent report of children’s externalizing problems was assessed via the Behavioral Assessment System for Children (BASC-2; Kamphaus et al., 2015).
Significant gender by image category interactions emerged (F(2,100)=3.58, p=.038) showing that boys exhibited greater processing of non-social reward (i.e., object-based) compared to interpersonal social reward, whereas girls showed the opposite pattern (F(1,50)=5.36, p=.025; see Figure 1). There was also an interaction between gender and the non-social LPP amplitude predicting child aggression (b=-.612, p=.018), such that parents reported greater aggression problems for boys who displayed larger LPPs to non-social, object-based reward images (b=-3.39, p=.050). This pattern was not present for girls (see Figure 2).
In sum, the current findings reveal distinct patterns of neural processing underlying gender differences in motivated attention to social and non-social reward cues in children. Moreover, as enhanced salience of non-social reward cues was specifically associated with externalizing risk in males, these results highlight novel directions for designing interventions aimed at training motivated attention toward social reward cues, and away from non-social reward cues, in vulnerable children.

Authors

• Adaeze C. Egwuatu, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Presenting Author

• Jennifer M. McDermott, University of Massachusetts Amherst
  Non-Presenting Author