School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, UK.
Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Northampton, Northampton, UK.
Eur Child Adolesc Psychiatry. 2020 Mar;29(3):363-371. doi: 10.1007/s00787-019-01358-w. Epub 2019 Jun 1.
Childhood disruptive behaviour has been linked to later antisocial and criminal behaviour. Emotion recognition and empathy impairments, thought to be caused by inattention to the eye region, are hypothesised to contribute to antisocial and criminal behaviour. This is the first study to simultaneously examine emotion recognition and empathy impairments, their relationship, and the mechanism behind these impairments, in children with disruptive behaviour. We hypothesised that children with disruptive behaviour would exhibit negative emotion recognition and cognitive and affective empathy impairments, but that these impairments would not be due to reduced attention to the eye region. We expected these emotion impairments to be driven by disruptive behaviour. We also expected a relationship between emotion recognition and cognitive empathy only. Ninety-two children with disruptive behaviour, who were participating in a police crime prevention programme and rated by their schoolteacher using the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (DB; mean age 8.8 years, 80% male), took part. There was a comparison group of 58 typically developing children (TD; mean age 9.7 years, 78% male). All children completed emotion recognition and empathy tasks, both with concurrent eye tracking to assess social attention. Not only were DB children significantly impaired in negative emotion and neutral emotion recognition, and in cognitive and affective empathy compared to the TD children, but severity of disruptive behaviour also predicted intensity of emotion impairments. There were no differences in social attention to the eye region. Negative emotion recognition and empathy impairments are already present in an identifiable group of children displaying disruptive behaviour. These findings provide evidence to encourage the use of targeted interventions.
儿童期的破坏性行为与后期的反社会和犯罪行为有关。情绪识别和同理心受损，被认为是由于对眼部区域的注意力不集中而导致的，被假设为导致反社会和犯罪行为的原因。这是第一项同时检查破坏性行为儿童的情绪识别和同理心受损、它们之间的关系以及这些受损背后的机制的研究。我们假设具有破坏性行为的儿童会表现出消极情绪识别和认知及情感同理心受损，但这些受损不是由于对眼部区域的注意力减少所致。我们期望这些情绪受损是由破坏性行为驱动的。我们还期望情绪识别和认知同理心之间存在关系。共有 92 名具有破坏性行为的儿童（DB；平均年龄 8.8 岁，80%为男性）参加了这项研究，他们正在参加一项警察犯罪预防计划，并由他们的教师使用《长处与困难问卷》（Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire，SDQ）进行评估。还有一个对照组，由 58 名具有典型发展的儿童（TD；平均年龄 9.7 岁，78%为男性）组成。所有儿童都完成了情绪识别和同理心任务，同时进行眼动追踪以评估社交注意力。DB 儿童在识别消极情绪和中性情绪、认知和情感同理心方面都明显不如 TD 儿童，而且破坏性行为的严重程度也预测了情绪受损的程度。在对眼部区域的社交注意力方面没有差异。在表现出破坏性行为的可识别儿童群体中，已经存在负性情绪识别和同理心受损的情况。这些发现为鼓励使用有针对性的干预措施提供了证据。
