Department of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada.
Centre for Child Development, Mental Health, and Policy, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Canada.
Aggress Behav. 2021 Nov;47(6):646-658. doi: 10.1002/ab.21989. Epub 2021 Aug 9.
Difficulty recognizing negative emotions (NEs) in children is linked to increased antisocial traits and externalizing problems. However, crucial aspects of this relation remain unclear, such as: whether NE recognition is associated with externalizing problems in general or only a particular subcomponent (i.e., aggression); whether subcomponents of NE recognition (i.e., insensitivity and misspecifications) are relatively more important; and how these relations change over the course of development. We assessed emotion recognition, overt aggression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) symptoms, and oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) symptoms in an ethnically diverse sample of Canadian children (N = 150; 4-year-olds, N = 148; 8-year-olds) and followed up with them 1 year later (86.9% retention). Emotion recognition was assessed using a behavioral task and caregivers reported on children's externalizing symptoms. Children with lower NE recognition had higher initial, but not subsequent, overt aggression, even when controlling for nonaggressive externalizing symptoms (i.e., ADHD and ODD symptoms). NE recognition was not concurrently or longitudinally associated with nonaggressive externalizing symptoms. Age and gender did not moderate these findings. Both higher NE insensitivity (e.g., reporting a sad face appears neutral) and misspecifications (e.g., reporting a sad face appears angry) were significantly associated with higher concurrent overt aggression. In conclusion, both NE insensitivity and misspecifications were found to be uniquely important for children's overt aggression. These findings highlight the importance of different forms of NE recognition and differentiating between aggressive and nonaggressive externalizing problems in children.
难以识别儿童的负性情绪（NEs）与反社会特质和外化问题的增加有关。然而，这种关系的关键方面仍不清楚，例如：NE 识别是否与外化问题一般相关，还是仅与特定的亚组成分（即攻击性）相关；NE 识别的亚组成分（即不敏感和错误识别）是否相对更重要；以及这些关系如何随时间变化而变化。我们评估了加拿大儿童（N = 150；4 岁儿童，N = 148；8 岁儿童）的种族多样化样本中的情绪识别、外显攻击、注意缺陷多动障碍（ADHD）症状和对立违抗性障碍（ODD）症状，并在 1 年后对他们进行了随访（保留率为 86.9%）。使用行为任务评估情绪识别，照顾者报告儿童的外化症状。NE 识别能力较低的儿童最初（但不是随后）的外显攻击性更高，即使在控制非攻击性外化症状（即 ADHD 和 ODD 症状）后也是如此。NE 识别能力既不与非攻击性外化症状同时相关，也不与非攻击性外化症状呈纵向相关。年龄和性别并没有调节这些发现。更高的 NE 不敏感（例如，报告悲伤的面孔看起来中性）和错误识别（例如，报告悲伤的面孔看起来愤怒）都与更高的当前外显攻击性显著相关。总之，NE 不敏感和错误识别都被发现与儿童的外显攻击性具有独特的相关性。这些发现强调了不同形式的 NE 识别以及区分儿童的攻击性和非攻击性外化问题的重要性。
