Negative Emotion Recognition and Aggression Subtypes in Early and Middle Childhood

• In Event: Proactive Aggression in Childhood and Early Adolescence

Abstract

Children who have difficulty recognizing negative emotions, such as anger, fear, and sadness, are more likely to exhibit antisocial traits and behaviours (Dawel et al., 2012). Research suggests that difficulties in recognizing negative emotions (NE) may be particularly related to psychopathic traits, making antisocial behaviours relevant to psychopathy (namely proactive aggression) potentially more affected (Blair & Coles, 2000). However, to our knowledge, no studies have examined whether NE recognition difficulties are differentially associated with distinct subtypes of aggression (e.g., reactive and proactive) over the course of children’s development. Additionally, it is unclear whether different types of NE recognition errors (e.g., insensitivity vs. misspecification) are relatively more important for the development of aggression. We addressed these gaps by investigating whether distinct components of NE recognition were differentially associated with reactive and proactive aggression in early and middle childhood concurrently and longitudinally.

We collected data from an ethnically diverse sample of Canadian 4- and 8-year-olds (N = 300; 150 in each age group) and their caregivers, and followed up with them one year later. Children completed a behavioral sorting task requiring them to differentiate between angry, fearful, sad, happy, and neutral facial expressions (Gao & Maurer, 2009). Emotional facial expressions varied from 10% to 100% emotion intensity. NE insensitivity was calculated as the number of NE facial expressions that children misidentified as showing no emotion (e.g., classifying fear as neutral). NE misspecification was calculated as the number of NE facial expressions that children misclassified as another emotion (e.g., classifying fear as sadness). Caregivers rated children’s overt proactive (harming others for personal gain) and reactive aggression (harming others when provoked; αs = .88; Little et al., 2003). Age, gender, and verbal ability were added as controls.

Path analyses indicated that children who had higher NE insensitivity (β = .18, p = .005), but not NE misspecification (β = .09, p = .20), also had higher concurrent proactive aggression (Figure 1). NE insensitivity’s association with proactive aggression remained significant after controlling for reactive aggression (β = .10, p = .01). Neither NE insensitivity (β = .10, p = .14) nor misspecification (β = .10, p = .17) were significantly associated with reactive aggression. NE insensitivity and misspecification were not significantly linked to rank-order changes in reactive and proactive one year later. None of these relations were moderated by age. These findings suggest that NE insensitivity may be particularly important for understanding concurrent proactive aggression during early and middle childhood. Together, this could indicate that children who have trouble detecting the presence of NEs lack the negative feedback from others necessary to care about harming others for personal gain. Subtypes of emotion (mis)recognition and aggressive behavior may be important to consider in future research and interventions to better understand how and when emotion recognition issues factor into children’s harmful behavior.

Authors

• Erinn Acland, University of Toronto
  Presenting Author

• Tina Malti, University of Toronto
  Non-Presenting Author