Thinking about Others' Minds: Mental State Inference in Boys with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits

An 'embedded brain' approach to understanding antisocial behaviour

Antisocial behaviour (ASB) incurs substantial costs to the individual and society. Cognitive neuroscience has the potential to shed light on developmental risk for ASB, but it cannot achieve this potential in an 'essentialist' framework that focuses on the brain and cognition isolated from the environment. Here, we present the case for studying the social transactional and iterative unfolding of brain and cognitive development in a relational context. This approach, which we call the study of the 'embedded brain', is needed to fully understand how risk for ASB arises during development. Concentrated efforts are required to develop and unify methods to achieve this approach and reap the benefits for improved prevention and intervention of ASB.

Reduced prosocial motivation and effort in adolescents with conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits

BACKGROUND

Prosocial behaviours - acts that benefit others - are of crucial importance for many species including humans. However, adolescents with conduct problems (CP), unlike their typically developing (TD) peers, demonstrate markedly reduced engagement in prosocial behaviours. This pattern is particularly pronounced in adolescents with CP and high levels of callous-unemotional traits (CP/HCU) who are at increased risk of developing psychopathy in adulthood. While a substantial amount of research has investigated the cognitive-affective mechanisms thought to underlie antisocial behaviour, much less is known about the mechanisms that could explain reduced prosocial behaviours in adolescents with CP.

METHODS

Here we examined the willingness to exert effort to benefit oneself (self) and another person (other, prosocial condition) in children with CP/HCU, CP and lower levels of CU traits (CP/LCU) and their TD peers. The task captured both prosocial choices, and actual effort exerted following prosocial choices, in adolescent boys aged 11-16 (27 CP/HCU; 34 CP/LCU; 33 TD). We used computational modelling to reveal the mechanistic processes involved when choosing prosocial acts.

RESULTS

We found that both CP/HCU and CP/LCU groups were more averse to initiating effortful prosocial acts than TD adolescents - both at a cognitive and at a behavioural level. Strikingly, even if they chose to initiate a prosocial act, the CP/HCU group exerted less effort following this prosocial choice than other groups.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings indicate that reduced exertion of effort to benefit others may be an important factor that differentiates adolescents with CP/HCU from their peers with CP/LCU. They offer new insights into what might drive low prosocial behaviour in adolescents with CP, including vulnerabilities that may particularly characterise those with high levels of CU traits.

Cognitive and affective perspective taking amongst adolescent offenders with variants of callous-unemotional traits

Evidence suggests that associations between antisocial behaviour, callous-unemotional (CU) traits and cognitive empathy (e.g. perspective taking) vary depending on more fine-grained dimensions of these constructs. This study examined associations between adolescent antisocial behaviour and individual differences in cognitive and affective perspective taking ability. Based on current theory regarding distinct variants of CU traits, we further tested whether the correlates of CU traits differed amongst youth with high versus low levels of anxiety. Participants were 130 male adolescents (81 youth offenders; 49 non-offenders) aged 13-20 years, of predominantly Caucasian and Aboriginal Australian ethnicity. Perspective taking skills were indexed using performance-based testing, and self-report data was collected on CU traits and anxiety in a cross-sectional design. Offender status was associated with poorer cognitive and affective perspective taking. In addition, associations between CU traits and perspective taking skills were moderated by anxiety. Specifically, CU traits were associated with poorer skills for second-order cognitive perspective taking amongst high-anxiety youth, whereas CU traits were associated with better cognitive and affective perspective taking skills amongst low-anxiety youth. More fine-grained assessment of such factors stands to enhance understanding of, and effective intervention for, antisocial youth.

Socio-cognitive correlates of primary school children's deceptive behavior toward peers in competitive settings

Competing for limited resources with peers is common among children from an early age, illustrating their propensity to use deceptive strategies to win. We focused on how primary school-age (6-8 years old) children's strategic deception toward peers is associated with their socio-cognitive development (theory of mind and executive functions). In a novel computerized competitive hide-and-seek game, we manipulated the peer opponents' familiarity (familiar vs. unfamiliar) and actions (following vs. not following children's indications), as well as the stimuli likability (liked vs. disliked cards). Our findings demonstrated that children deceived the familiar opponent less than the unfamiliar one, indicating their determination to preserve positive peer interactions. We showed that theory of mind and executive functions significantly predicted children's willingness to deceive. Notably, second-order false belief understanding and visuospatial working memory positively predicted children's use of truths to deceive, whereas inhibitory control and cognitive flexibility efficacy scores were negatively related to their deceptive performance when using the same strategy. Implications for children's competitive behavior toward peers involving lie-telling are discussed.

Psychopathic Traits and Theory of Mind Task Performance: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

This meta-analysis aims to examine the relationship between psychopathic traits and theory of mind (ToM), which is classically and broadly defined as competency in representing and attributing mental states such as emotions, intentions, and beliefs to others. Our search strategy gathered 142 effect sizes, from 42 studies, with a total sample size of 7463 participants. Random effects models were used to analyze the data. Our findings suggested that psychopathic traits are associated with impaired ToM task performance. This relationship was not moderated by age, population, psychopathy measurement (self-report versus clinical checklist) or conceptualization, or ToM task type (cognitive versus affective). The effect also remained significant after excluding tasks that did not require the participant to 1) mentalize or 2) differentiate self and other perspectives. However, interpersonal/affective traits were associated with a more pronounced impairment in ToM task performance compared to lifestyle/antisocial traits. Future research should investigate the effects of distinct psychopathy facets that will allow for a more precise understanding of the social-cognitive bases of relevant clinical presentations in psychopathy.

Affective theory of mind impairments underlying callous-unemotional traits and the role of cognitive control

Affective theory of mind (aToM) impairments associated with the youth antisocial phenotype callous-unemotional (CU) traits predict antisocial behaviour above CU traits alone. Importantly, CU traits associate with decrements in complex but not basic aToM. aToM is modulated by cognitive control and CU traits associate with cognitive control impairments; thus, cognitive control is a plausible mechanism underlying aToM impairments in CU traits. Because cognitive control is dependent on the availability of cognitive resources, youth with CU traits may have difficulty with allocating cognitive resources under greater demands that impact complex aToM. To test this, 81 participants (ages 12-14, Female = 51.8%, Male = 48.2%) were recruited to complete a behavioural paradigm that involved an initial aToM task with complex and basic emotions followed by placing additional demands on cognitive control and a final repeat of the same aToM task. Results indicate adolescents higher in CU traits had intact basic aToM but less accuracy in complex aToM that worsened after taxing cognitive control; and this load only required a short duration to account for ToM decrements (200 ms [range 150-1600 ms]). These results demonstrate CU traits association with cognitive control limitations that impact complex aToM. This may partially explain antisocial behaviour associated with CU traits.

The "(a)moral brain": When things go wrong

In the past decades, a growing interest of neuroscience on moral judgment and decision-making has shed new light on the neurobiological correlates of human morality. It is now understood that moral cognition relies on a complex integration of cognitive and affective information processes that implicate a widely distributed brain network. Moral cognition relies on the coordination of several domain-general processes, subserved by domain-general neural networks, rather than a specific moral cognition system subserved by a specific neural network. In this chapter, we will first briefly review what is currently known about the "moral brain," i.e., the network of brain regions consistently implicated in studies of moral cognition, which include decision-making, affective processing, mentalizing, and perspective-taking processing regions. We will then review the evidence of the impairments found in this network in individuals with psychopathy, a condition whose characteristics indicate profound disturbances in appropriate moral processing. We will present data from neuroimaging studies with forensic/clinical, general population, as well as child and adolescent samples, which seem to converge to support the notion that the moral dysfunction observed in individuals with psychopathy may stem from a disruption of affective components of moral processing rather than from an inability to compute moral judgments per se.

Callous-Unemotional Traits Moderate Anticipated Guilt and Wrongness Judgments to Everyday Moral Transgressions in Adolescents

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits observed during childhood and adolescence are thought to be precursors of psychopathic traits in adulthood. Adults with high levels of psychopathic traits typically present antisocial behavior. Such behavior can be indicative of atypical moral processing. Evidence suggests that moral dysfunction in these individuals may stem from a disruption of affective components of moral processing rather than from an inability to compute moral judgments per se. No study to date has tested if the dissociation between affective and cognitive dimensions of moral processing linked to psychopathic traits in adulthood is also linked to CU traits during development. Here, 47 typically developing adolescents with varying levels of CU traits completed a novel, animated cartoon task depicting everyday moral transgressions and indicated how they would feel in such situations and how morally wrong the situations were. Adolescents with higher CU traits reported reduced anticipated guilt and wrongness appraisals of the transgressions. However, our key finding was a significant interaction between CU traits and anticipated guilt in predicting wrongness judgments. The strength of the association between anticipated guilt and wrongness judgement was significantly weaker for those with higher levels of CU traits. This evidence extends our knowledge on the cognitive-affective processing deficits that may underlie moral dysfunction in youth who are at heightened risk for antisocial behavior and psychopathy in adulthood. Future longitudinal research is required to elucidate whether there is an increased dissociation between different components of moral processing from adolescence to adulthood for those with high psychopathic traits.

Cognitive Empathy in Subtypes of Antisocial Individuals

Cognitive empathy allows individuals to recognize and infer how others think and feel in social situations and provides a foundation for the formation and maintenance of mutually constructive relationships. It may seem intuitive to assume that individuals who engage in antisocial behavior, who disregard the rights of others, might have problems with cognitive empathy. However, careful examination of the literature suggests that any dysfunction in cognitive empathy associated with antisociality varies by subtype of antisocial individual and is specific to subcomponents of cognitive empathy. In this review, we (1) briefly define subtypes of antisocial individuals ("psychopathic" vs. "antisocial-only"), (2) summarize specific components of cognitive empathy; (3) review existing literature examining cognitive empathy through questionnaires, behavioral tasks, and neuroimaging within different antisocial subtypes; and (4) discuss the limitations of the current research and potential future directions. Individuals in the psychopathic subtype fail to implicitly engage in cognitive empathy, and potentially lack insight into this issue reflected in no self-reported problems with cognitive empathy, but show an ability to engage in cognitive empathy when explicitly required. Individuals in the antisocial-only subtype appear able to engage in cognitive empathy, showing no differences on questionnaire or behavioral tasks that tap explicit cognitive empathy, but may display subtle difficulties accurately inferring (affective theory of mind) the emotions of others. We end the review by noting areas for future research, including the need to: (1) document the patterns of equifinality that exist across levels of analysis for these antisocial subtypes; (2) examine the temporality of empathy and antisociality development; (3) carefully consider and label subcomponents of cognitive empathy in research on antisocial behavior; and (4) investigate the intersection among environmental experiences, cognitive empathy, and antisocial behavior.