Prosocial behaviour in children with conduct problems: Investigating putative cognitive-affective mechanisms and their malleability

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Children with conduct problems (i.e. concerning levels of behavioural problems) are at risk of later criminality, mental health problems, educational underachievement and problems in their social relationships. Conduct problems are equally, or more common than other childhood disorders (e.g. ADHD, depression or autism spectrum disorders), but we have not seen the same level of advocacy, research spending and access to interventions for these children. The presentation of children with conduct problems evokes less empathy than other childhood disorders, yet these children and their families experience considerable distress. We need to improve our understanding of why these children have behavioural problems and what can be done to help them. Past research has focused on how children with conduct problems process negative emotions. This has helped researchers and clinicians understand why these children can find it difficult to empathise with other people (they may not respond typically to others' expressions of distress) or why they may act aggressively (they may have difficulty in regulating their emotions, especially if they feel threatened). Much less research has focused on how these children perceive positive emotions, whether they pay attention to positive emotions and whether positive emotions motivate them. This is surprising, because we know that positive emotions can promote prosocial behaviour and are important for successful interactions with other people. Positive emotional expressions, both happy facial expressions and voices, can make us feel included and motivate us to please others. It is important for us to recognise and notice these emotions. There are a few studies that suggest that children with conduct problems may be less likely to notice positive emotional expressions and may be less motivated by them. We need a study that systematically investigates whether these findings are real and what aspects of positive emotion processing are affected. We also need to know if we can train positive emotion perception and whether doing so would reduce antisocial behaviour and increase prosocial behaviour in children with conduct problems. Finally, we need to know whether all children with conduct problems look the same or whether difficulties in positive emotion processing only apply to some children with conduct problems, perhaps those who have difficulty empathising with other people? We also know if training positive emotion perception is effective for all or only some children with CP.This project addresses each of these gaps in our knowledge. We will work together with children and young people with and without conduct problems to create an attractive set of tools to assess and train positive emotion processing. We will also measure antisocial and prosocial behaviour following training, to study its impact. Our hope is that this work will help us improve interventions for children and young people with conduct problems.