Can Self-Persuasion Reduce Hostile Attribution Bias in Young Children?

Autistic Traits and Aggressive Behavior in Chinese College Students: A Serial Mediation Model and the Gender Difference

Background

The existence of aggressive behavior in autism spectrum disorders (ASD) raises questions about whether cognitive and emotional factors in social information processing play a role between autistic traits (ATs) and aggressive behavior in the general population, especially in the context of Chinese culture. Moreover, given a possible gender difference in these variables, the study aimed to examine the effect of ATs on aggressive behavior, and the potential mediating role of hostile attribution bias and alexithymia on this association, as well as gender difference.

Methods

850 Chinese college students participated in the assessment, including their ATs, hostile attribution bias, alexithymia, and aggressive behavior. Pearson correlation, mediation effects analyses, and multiple-group comparison were conducted.

Results

The results indicated that ATs indirectly predicted increased aggressive behavior through attribution bias and alexithymia. Gender difference in mediating effects was revealed: ATs indirectly predicted increased aggressive behavior through the serial mediating effect only in males.

Conclusion

Hostile attribution bias and alexithymia completely mediated the association between ATs and aggressive behavior, which contained the separate mediating effects of (a) hostile attribution bias and (b) alexithymia and the serial mediating effect of (c) hostile attribution bias and alexithymia. Gender differences in mediating effects were found only in the serial mediating effect, which was significant in males but not in females. The findings revealed the internal mechanism of ATs affecting aggressive behavior and gender difference, which have implications for the intervention of aggressive behavior of individuals with autism and those with high levels of ATs.

Child maltreatment and victimization

It is estimated that up to 25% of all children growing up worldwide experience child maltreatment, making it a global emergency with substantial individual and public health consequences. This chapter addresses one of the most societally pervasive consequences of child maltreatment which is known as the "cycle of victimization." This concept depicts the increased risk of maltreated individuals to victimize others later in life, both within and outside the family environment. To understand the architecture of this victimization cycle, the chapter further sheds light on neurocognitive mechanisms aiding different forms of victimization and the buffering role of social support that could help break the cycle of victimization. Advancing our understanding of these complex and interrelated mechanisms will ultimately facilitate the design and implementation of more targeted early treatments and (preventive) interventions and support a move toward a safer society.

Interactive virtual reality assessment of aggressive social information processing in boys with behaviour problems: A pilot study

Children's aggressive behaviour is partly determined by how they process social information (e.g., making hostile interpretations or aiming to seek revenge). Such aggressive social information processing (SIP) may be most evident if children are emotionally engaged in actual social interactions. Current methods to assess aggressive SIP, however, often ask children to reflect on hypothetical vignettes. This pilot study therefore examined a new method that actually involves children in emotionally engaging social interactions: interactive virtual reality (VR). We developed a virtual classroom where children could play games with virtual peers. A sample of boys (N = 32; ages 8-13) from regular and special education reported on their SIP in distinct VR contexts (i.e., neutral, instrumental gain and provocation). They also completed a standard vignette-based assessment of SIP. Results demonstrated good convergent validity of interactive VR assessment of SIP, as indicated by significant moderate to large correlations of VR-assessed SIP with vignette-assessed SIP for all SIP variables except anger. Interactive VR showed improved measurement sensitivity (i.e., larger variances in SIP compared to vignettes) for aggressive responding, but not for other SIP variables. Discriminant validity (i.e., distinct SIP patterns across contexts) of interactive VR was supported for provocation contexts, but not for instrumental gain contexts. Last, children were more enthusiastic about the VR assessment compared to the vignette-based assessment. These findings suggest that interactive VR may be a promising tool, allowing for the assessment of children's aggressive SIP in standardized yet emotionally engaging social interactions.

Can Self-Persuasion Reduce Hostile Attribution Bias in Young Children?

Two experiments tested an intervention approach to reduce young children's hostile attribution bias and aggression: self-persuasion. Children with high levels of hostile attribution bias recorded a video-message advocating to peers why story characters who caused a negative outcome may have had nonhostile intentions (self-persuasion condition), or they simply described the stories (control condition). Before and after the manipulation, hostile attribution bias was assessed using vignettes of ambiguous provocations. Study 1 (n = 83, age 4-8) showed that self-persuasion reduced children's hostile attribution bias. Study 2 (n = 121, age 6-9) replicated this finding, and further showed that self-persuasion was equally effective at reducing hostile attribution bias as was persuasion by others (i.e., listening to an experimenter advocating for nonhostile intentions). Effects on aggressive behavior, however, were small and only significant for one out of four effects tested. This research provides the first evidence that self-persuasion may be an effective approach to reduce hostile attribution bias in young children.

It's not just what you say, it's how you say it too. Adolescents' hostile attribution of intent and emotional responses to social comments

A highly prevalent and relevant situation in which adolescents have to interpret the intentions of others is when they interact with peers. We therefore successfully introduced a new paradigm to measure hostile attribution bias (HAB) and emotional responses to such social interactions and examined how it related to youth's aggressiveness. We presented 881 adolescents (M_age = 14.35 years; SD = 1.23; 48.1% male) with audio fragments of age‐mates expressing social comments that varied in content (e.g., what the person says) and tone of voice (e.g., how the person says it). Participants' peers also reported on their aggressiveness. In general, added negativity of content and tone was driving the youth's intent attribution and emotional responses to the comments. In line with the Social Information Processing model, we found more hostile attribution of intent and more negative emotional responses of aggressive youth to ambiguous stimuli. Aggression was also related to more hostile intent attributions when both content and tone were negative. Unlike most studies on HAB, the aggression effects in the current study emerged for girls, but not boys. Implications of these results and future use of the experimental paradigm are discussed.

Inclusiveness of cognitive bias modification research toward children and young people with neurodevelopmental disorders: A systematic review

Cognitive bias modification (CBM) is increasingly used to target cognitive biases related to internalising or externalising problems, which are common in neurodevelopmental disorders (NDD). This systematic review assesses the available evidence for using CBM in children and young people with NDD, in particular regarding ambiguous interpersonal information, and the extent of their exclusion from this type of intervention research. PsycINFO, PsycARTICLES, MEDLINE, Cochrane Central Register of Controlled Trials and Science Citation Index were consulted using MeSH terms and synonyms of "neurodevelopmental disorders", "mental health problems", "cognitive bias", "modification" and "review". Data extraction focused on the efficacy of CBM for NDD, how CBM was delivered, whether studies adopted exclusion criteria relating to NDD and the rationale for such criteria. The search identified 2270 records, of which twenty-nine studies assessed CBM for interpretations and were included in the qualitative synthesis. Three studies targeted bias in NDD, whereas a third of studies explicitly excluded participants based on NDD-related criteria: most frequently intellectual impairment, reading or learning difficulties and autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Only one study provided a rationale for excluding NDD which related to the reading demands of their intervention. There is tentative evidence for the feasibility of using CBM to reduce interpretation bias in children and young people with mild intellectual disability, ASD or attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). We recommend that CBM research should consider including participants with NDD, use CBM tasks and adaptations that enable this group's inclusion, or provide a sufficient rationale for their exclusion.