EMOTION DIAGNOSTIC FOR PRESCHOOLERS PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

学龄前儿童心理病理学情绪诊断

• 批准号: 6207289
• 负责人: MICHAEL POTEGAL
• 金额: $ 7.23万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-01 至 2002-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6207289
• 关键词: aggression; angers; attention deficit disorder; behavior prediction; child behavior disorders; clinical research; cryings; emotions; human subject; mental disorder diagnosis; personality; preschool child (1-5)

Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis of tantrum descriptions provided by parents indicate that tantrums consist of two main sets of behaviors. Anger-related behaviors, e.g., shouting, hitting, kicking, stamping, or throwing, are maximal at tantrum onset and decline within a few minutes. Whining, comfort-seeking, and crying are distress-signalling behaviors. Crying occurs with a probability of about 50 percent at tantrum onset and increases in probability and intensity throughout the tantrum; comfort-seeking increases sharply toward the end. Further evidence for the separability of anger and distress comes from our study of right/left hemisphere EEG asymmetries in tantrum prone and non tantrum prone 4 year olds in which there was a significant correlation of right frontal cortex activation with facial expressions of sadness while left posterior temporal activation was associated with both parental reports and laboratory measures of anger. Although independent, anger and distress overlap in the tantrums of most children. With clinical psychopathology, however, tantrum patterns may become exaggerated in one or another direction. Several lines of evidence suggest that 4 year olds presenting primarily with externalizing behavior disorders may have frequent, predominantly angry tantrums in which they are more likely to run away than throw themselves down. Four year olds with primarily internalizing emotional disorders may have prolonged, predominantly distress related tantrums in which they are more likely to seek comfort and/or throw themselves down than run away. We propose to test this hypothesis by training parents of externalizing and internalizing 4 year olds to record their children's tantrums. We propose to determine if tantrum characteristics predict the reactions of these children to emotion eliciting situations in the laboratory. Some physiological indices suggest that baseline levels of physiological arousal and stress are lower in externalizing children and higher in internalizing children. We propose to test the hypotheses that skin conductance baseline levels and reactivity may be inversely associated with tantrum anger while salivary cortisol baseline levels and reactivity may be directly related to tantrum distress. Children typically relinquish tantrums by their fifth year, studies have shown that tantrums persisting to age 8 are strongly prognostic of poor adjustment. We propose to extend this to a younger age by testing whether the frequency, duration, or behavioral content (anger and/or distress) of tantrums at 4 years of age predict the persistence of tantrums and the severity of psychopathology at 5 years.

父母发脾气描述的多维尺度和因子分析表明，发脾气主要包括两组行为。与愤怒有关的行为，如大喊大叫、打人、踢人、跺脚或投掷，在发脾气开始时达到最大值，并在几分钟内减少。哀嚎、寻求安慰和哭泣都是痛苦的信号行为。在发脾气开始时，哭泣的概率约为50%，在整个发脾气过程中，哭泣的概率和强度都会增加；寻求安慰的行为在临终前急剧增加。进一步证明愤怒和痛苦可分离的证据来自于我们对易发脾气和不容易发脾气的4岁儿童的左右半球脑电图不对称的研究，其中右额叶皮层的激活与悲伤的面部表情有显著的相关性，而左后颞叶的激活与父母报告和实验室测量的愤怒有关。虽然是独立的，但愤怒和痛苦在大多数孩子的发脾气中是重叠的。然而，在临床精神病理学中，发脾气模式可能会在一个或另一个方向上被夸大。几条线索的证据表明，主要表现为外化行为障碍的4岁儿童可能会频繁地、主要是愤怒地发脾气，在这种情况下，他们更有可能逃跑而不是摔倒。患有主要内化情绪障碍的四岁儿童可能会长时间、主要是与痛苦有关的发脾气，他们更有可能寻求安慰和/或自暴自弃，而不是逃跑。我们建议通过训练外化和内化4岁孩子的父母记录他们孩子的发脾气来检验这一假设。我们建议在实验室中确定发脾气的特征是否能预测这些孩子对情绪引发情况的反应。一些生理指标表明，外化儿童的生理唤醒和应激基线水平较低，而内化儿童的生理唤醒和应激基线水平较高。我们建议测试皮肤电导基线水平和反应性可能与发脾气愤怒呈负相关，而唾液皮质醇基线水平和反应性可能与发脾气痛苦直接相关的假设。孩子们通常在5岁时停止发脾气，研究表明，持续到8岁的发脾气是适应能力差的强烈预兆。我们建议通过测试4岁时发脾气的频率、持续时间或行为内容（愤怒和/或痛苦）是否能预测5岁时发脾气的持续性和精神病理的严重程度，将这一研究扩展到更年轻的年龄。