A process model linking physiological arousal and fear recognition to aggression via guilt in middle childhood

Autonomic nervous system reactivity to emotion and childhood trajectories of relational and physical aggression

This study investigated the role of autonomic nervous system (ANS) coordination in response to emotion in girls' and boys' development of relational (e.g., ignoring, excluding) and physical (e.g., hitting, kicking) aggression. Caregivers reported on children's relational and physical aggression at ages 6, 7, 8, and 10 years (N = 232, 50.4% girls, 46.6% Latinx). Sympathetic nervous system (assessed via pre-ejection period) and parasympathetic nervous system (assessed via respiratory sinus arrhythmia) reactivity were measured in response to video clips depicting fear, happiness, and sadness at age 7. Growth curve models indicated that ANS reactivity to sadness, but not to fear or happiness, was related to trajectories of relational aggression. In contrast, ANS reactivity to all three emotions was associated with trajectories of physical aggression. Effects differed across genders, indicating that distinct patterns of ANS reactivity to emotion may be involved in girls' and boys' development of aggression. Overall, these findings contribute to a growing literature documenting the role of ANS reactivity to emotion in aggressive behavior. Moreover, this study considers ANS reactivity to specific emotions, as related to both relational and physical aggression, and as differentially expressed among girls versus boys.

Physiological Dysregulation in Children With and Without Externalizing Difficulties: Novel Insights From Intensive Longitudinal Data

Extant research on physiological dysregulation in children has focused on point-in-time measures and absolute mean levels of physiology. However, these methods do not capture dynamic fluctuations in physiology that characterize dysregulation. In the present work, we aimed to assess whether physiological dysregulation as captured by fluctuations rather than mean levels would differentiate between children with and without clinically elevated levels of externalizing behavior. As an exploratory approach, we examined fluctuations in children's physiological responses (i.e., root mean square of successive differences [RMSSD] in beat-to-beat heart rate intervals) to social transgression scenarios across 15 short-term measurement occasions (5-second bins). Controlling for mean RMSSD, as well as emotional and cognitive correlates of externalizing behavior (i.e., sympathy and inhibitory control), children with externalizing difficulties exhibited greater within-person fluctuations in RMSSD (i.e., physiological dysregulation) compared to children without externalizing difficulties. The present findings provide preliminary support for using intensive longitudinal data comprised of short-term physiological measurements and point to the centrality of within-child physiological variability as a marker of dysregulation, particularly amongst children with externalizing disorders for whom self-regulation is a core challenge.

The psychophysiology of guilt in healthy adults

Guilt is a negative emotion, elicited by realizing one has caused actual or perceived harm to another person. Anecdotally, guilt often is described as a visceral and physical experience. However, while the way that the body responds to and contributes to emotions is well known in basic emotions, little is known about the characteristics of guilt as generated by the autonomic nervous system. This study investigated the physiologic signature associated with guilt in adults with no history of psychological or autonomic disorder. Healthy adults completed a novel task, including an initial questionnaire about their habits and attitudes, followed by videos designed to elicit guilt, as well as the comparison emotions of amusement, disgust, sadness, pride, and neutral. During the video task, participants' swallowing rate, electrodermal activity, heart rate, respiration rate, and gastric activity rate were continuously recorded. Guilt was associated with alterations in gastric rhythms, electrodermal activity, and swallowing rate relative to some or all the comparison emotions. These findings suggest that there is a mixed pattern of sympathetic and parasympathetic activation during the experience of guilt. These results highlight potential therapeutic targets for modulation of guilt in neurologic and psychiatric disorders with deficient or elevated levels of guilt, such as frontotemporal dementia, posttraumatic stress disorder, and Obsessive-compulsive disorder.

Autonomic Arousal, Ethical Guilt, and Externalizing Behavior in Childhood: A Clinical Extension and Replication

Lower autonomic arousal is associated with higher externalizing behavior in childhood but the mechanisms explaining this link are still debated. One possibility is that lower autonomic arousal makes it difficult for children to anticipate or express social emotions, such as ethical guilt rooted in concern for others, thereby increasing their likelihood of externalizing behavior. However, evidence for this social-emotional hypothesis has been limited to community samples. The present study included ethnically diverse samples of 150 typically developing children (M_age = 8.01 years; 50% girls) and 62 children referred for clinically elevated externalizing behavior (M_age = 9.16 years; 16% girls; N = 212). Caregivers reported children's externalizing behavior. Children's respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA) was measured as an indicator of parasympathetic activity in response to hypothetical vignettes depicting externalizing behavior. Children's ethical guilt was coded from semi-structured interviews following each vignette. Greater RSA increases (indicating a low-arousal, rest-and-digest response) were associated with lower ethical guilt. Lower ethical guilt was associated with higher externalizing behavior. A significant indirect effect showed that RSA increases were associated with higher externalizing behavior through relative lapses in ethical guilt. Results were consistent across and within the community and clinical samples. Theoretical and practical implications for clinically elevated externalizing behavior are discussed.

Parent–child conversations about refugee newcomers are associated with children’s refugee-specific prosociality

We examined Canadian host-society children’s prosociality (i.e., emotions and behaviors that reflect care for the welfare of others) toward refugee newcomer peers and the role of parental socialization (i.e., frequency of parent-child conversations about refugee newcomers) in children’s refugee-specific prosociality. The sample included 168 children (ages 6, 9, and 12 years; 51% girls; 58% European ethnicity) and their primary caregivers. We interviewed children to assess their ethical guilt-related emotions (based on emotions and reasoning) in response to a hypothetical vignette depicting prosocial omission involving a refugee newcomer peer or a non-refugee peer (between-subjects manipulation). A donation task was used to assess prosocial behavior wherein children were given the opportunity to donate chocolate coins to a refugee newcomer peer. Parents reported on how often they typically engage in conversations with their children about refugees and about inclusion. Children experienced similar intensities of ethical guilt-related emotions in the refugee compared with the nonrefugee condition, and donations to refugees increased across age groups. Furthermore, children whose parents engaged them in more frequent conversations about refugees expressed stronger ethical guilt-related emotions toward refugee peers (but not toward host-society peers), and donated more to a refugee peer. No significant associations between conversations about inclusion more broadly and refugee-specific prosociality were found. Encouraging parents to have conversations with their children that focus on the experiences of refugees may be important for fostering kindness between refugees and host-society children. Ultimately, these findings may contribute to initiatives that focus on promoting the inclusion of refugee newcomers in their postmigratory societies.

Some critical considerations in applying the construct of psychopathy to research and classification of childhood disruptive behavior disorders

The recent inclusion of callous-unemotional traits in the diagnostic criteria for serious conduct problems has led to renewed interest in more comprehensive integrations of the construct of psychopathy into research and clinical classification of childhood disruptive behavior disorders. There have been a number of recent reviews of research focusing the many potential benefits for this integration. However, there are also a number of issues that could reduce these benefits and even potentially lead to harmful effects. The current paper focuses on several of these issues, some of which are common when attempting to integrate research findings across areas that have been conducted independently of each other. Other issues are more specific to the construct of psychopathy. Specifically, the current paper focuses on the lack of agreement on the necessary and sufficient dimensions needed to define psychopathy, the need to consider developmental relationships among these dimensions, the implications of the different associations among the dimensions of psychopathy with conduct problems in children and adolescents, the need to consider how these dimensions relate to existing constructs used in the classification of disruptive behavior disorders, and the potential harmful effects of labeling something "a dimension of psychopathy". These issues have several clear implications for using the construct of psychopathy to guide research on and diagnostic classification of childhood disruptive behavior disorders.

Is feeling bad good enough? Ethical guilt and callous-unemotional traits in childhood

Lacking the capacity for guilt is a defining characteristic of callous-unemotional (CU) traits. Although guilt is a multifaceted construct, past CU research has rarely considered the reasons underlying children's negative emotional responses to wrongdoing. The present study investigated how different forms of guilt were associated with CU traits during early and middle childhood in a Canadian community sample. We interviewed 4- and 8-year-olds (N = 300; 50% female) to assess their emotion attributions and reasoning in response to hypothetical acts of aggression. Interview responses were used to calculate variables representing undifferentiated, ethical, and non-ethical guilt ratings. Caregivers rated children's CU tendencies at baseline and again 3 years later. Higher ethical guilt was associated with lower CU scores concurrently and 3 years later. Higher non-ethical guilt was associated with higher CU scores at baseline (for older children) and 3 years later (for all children). Undifferentiated guilt was not associated with CU after controlling for demographic variables.

Kindhearted: Ethical guilt and ethical heart rate reactivity codevelop with aggression across childhood

Largely cross-sectional evidence indicates that ethical guilt is a robust predictor of childhood aggression. However, the underlying mechanisms of ethical guilt-in part assessed as ethical heart rate (HR) reactivity in the present study-are less clear, and longitudinal associations between ethical guilt, its underlying mechanisms, and aggression have not been explored. The present study used a multicohort longitudinal design to assess these constructs across early and middle childhood. At the beginning of the study and 2 years later, cohorts of 4- and 8-year-olds (ns = 150; N = 300) reported their guilt in response to an ethical transgression (i.e., pushing) and a nonethical transgression (i.e., breaking a classroom rule), and their HR was measured while they imagined committing these acts. Caregivers reported their child's aggression at each time point via questionnaire. Latent difference score models indicated that, regardless of cohort, children who increased in their ability to prioritize ethical guilt over 2 years were more likely to decrease in aggression over the same period. Moreover, children whose HR reactivity became more sensitive to ethical transgressions over time showed corresponding declines in aggression over time. Overall, these findings highlight the potential protective roles of children's capacities to react affectively and autonomically to the gravity of ethical transgressions across early and middle childhood.

Toward complementarity: Specificity and commonality in social-emotional development: Introduction to the special section

What are the roles of specificity and commonality in social-emotional development? We begin by highlighting the conceptual context for this timely and timeless question and explain how responses to it can inform novel lines of theoretical and empirical inquiry, as well as sociocultural generalizability. Next, we describe how the selection of papers included in this special section contributes to our understanding of specificity and commonality in social-emotional development. We then explain how applying the complementarity principle to social-emotional development can inform a future research agenda in this domain. Lastly, we discuss how specificity and commonality fundamentally impact the way we conceptualize and implement interventions aimed at nurturing social-emotional development in every child.