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

有行为问题（即行为问题的程度）的儿童有可能日后犯罪、出现心理健康问题、学业不良和社会关系问题。行为问题与其他儿童疾病（如多动症，抑郁症或自闭症谱系障碍）一样或更常见，但我们没有看到相同水平的宣传，研究支出和对这些儿童的干预措施。与其他儿童疾病相比，表现出行为问题的儿童引起的同情心较少，但这些儿童及其家庭经历了相当大的痛苦。我们需要更好地了解这些儿童为什么有行为问题，以及可以做些什么来帮助他们。过去的研究集中在有行为问题的儿童如何处理负面情绪。这有助于研究人员和临床医生理解为什么这些孩子很难与他人产生共鸣（他们可能不会对他人的痛苦表达做出典型的反应），或者为什么他们可能会表现出攻击性（他们可能很难调节自己的情绪，特别是当他们感到威胁时）。更少的研究集中在这些孩子如何感知积极情绪，他们是否注意积极情绪以及积极情绪是否激励他们。这是令人惊讶的，因为我们知道积极的情绪可以促进亲社会行为，并且对与他人的成功互动很重要。积极的情绪表达，包括快乐的面部表情和声音，可以让我们感到被包容，并激励我们取悦他人。重要的是我们要认识和注意这些情绪。有一些研究表明，有行为问题的儿童可能不太可能注意到积极的情绪表达，并且可能不太受其激励。我们需要一项研究来系统地调查这些发现是否是真实的，以及积极情绪处理的哪些方面受到了影响。我们还需要知道我们是否可以训练积极的情绪感知，以及这样做是否会减少有行为问题的儿童的反社会行为和增加亲社会行为。最后，我们需要知道是否所有有行为问题的孩子看起来都一样，或者积极情绪处理的困难是否只适用于一些有行为问题的孩子，也许是那些难以同情他人的孩子？我们也知道，如果训练积极的情绪感知是有效的所有或只有一些儿童与CP。这个项目解决了我们的知识的这些差距。我们将与有和没有行为问题的儿童和青少年一起工作，创造一套有吸引力的工具来评估和训练积极的情绪处理。我们还将测量培训后的反社会和亲社会行为，以研究其影响。我们希望这项工作将有助于我们改善对有行为问题的儿童和青少年的干预。

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.