EMOTION DIAGNOSTIC FOR PRESCHOOLERS PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

父母提供的发脾气描述的多维标度和因子分析表明，发脾气由两组主要行为组成。与愤怒有关的行为，如大喊大叫、打人、踢人、踩踏或投掷，在发脾气时最多，几分钟内就会下降。发牢骚、寻求安慰和哭泣都是痛苦的信号行为。在发脾气的时候哭的概率约为50%，整个发脾气的概率和强度都会增加；快到发脾气的时候，寻求安慰的人会急剧增加。愤怒和痛苦的可分性的进一步证据来自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不对称性的研究，在这些研究中，右侧额叶皮质的激活与面部悲伤的表情显着相关，而左侧后颞叶的激活与父母的报告和愤怒的实验室测量都相关。尽管是独立的，但愤怒和痛苦在大多数孩子的脾气中是重叠的。然而，在临床精神病理学中，发脾气的模式可能会在一个或另一个方向上变得夸张。几条证据表明，主要表现为外在性行为障碍的4岁儿童可能经常发脾气，主要是愤怒，他们更有可能逃跑而不是跳下去。患有主要是内化性情绪障碍的四岁儿童可能会有长期的、主要与痛苦有关的发脾气，他们更有可能寻求安慰和/或投降，而不是逃跑。我们建议通过训练外化和内化4岁儿童的父母来记录他们孩子的脾气来检验这一假设。我们建议确定发脾气特征是否可以预测这些儿童在实验室中对情绪激发情况的反应。一些生理指标表明，外向型儿童的生理唤醒和应激基线水平较低，内向型儿童的基线水平较高。我们建议检验皮肤电导基线水平和反应性可能与发脾气愤怒负相关的假设，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。儿童通常在五岁时不再发脾气，研究表明，持续到8岁的发脾气强烈预示着不良适应。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)是否可以预测5岁时发脾气的持续性和精神病理学的严重程度，将其扩展到更年轻的年龄。

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.