Behavioral Inhibition and Activation System Factors in Offenders and Non-Offenders

Abstract

Objective: The main aim was to investigate whether forensic psychiatric inpatients can be distinguished from prisoners and non-offender healthy controls based on their performance on neurocognitive tasks measuring behavioral inhibition and behavioral activation. Method: This study used preexisting data from 120 male forensic psychiatric inpatients, 60 male prisoners and 66 male non-offender healthy controls. A multinomial logistic regression analysis was used to study the links between our outcome measures and group membership. To this end, we used outcome measures from a Continuous Performance task, an emotional Stroop task and behavioral inhibition system and behavioral activation system (BIS/BAS) questionnaire. Results: BIS/BAS scores had discriminatory power for distinguishing forensic psychiatric inpatients from prisoners. Measures from the Continuous Performance task and the emotional Stroop task did not significantly differ between the offender groups. Conclusions: BIS/BAS are relevant concepts in the context of criminal behavior and could play a role in the development of new approaches to subtype offender populations, because they seem useful for differentiating forensic psychiatric inpatients from prisoners. For clinical practice, our results suggest that these concepts should be routinely assessed as part of neuropsychological testing in forensic psychiatric settings.

Charting cognitive characteristics in forensic psychiatric outpatients.

“…Weaknesses in these cognitive domains have robust positive associations with aggressive and criminal behavior (Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000; Ogilvie et al, 2011; Portnoy et al, 2013; Janes et al, 2024; Jansen & Franse, 2024). Similar results have been obtained in forensic (psychiatric) inpatient populations as well (Molleman, Driessen, et al, 2022; Molleman, Molleman, et al, 2022; Shumlich et al, 2019). However, recent research did not demonstrate any decrements in memory, orientation, language, and visuospatial skills within the prison and outpatient forensic (psychiatric) population (Fassaert et al, 2022).…”

“…Recent studies that examined similar forensic psychiatric populations compared to healthy controls (Molleman, Driessen, et al, 2022;Shumlich et al, 2019), also found no differences in performance between the groups on items of abstract reasoning. Even though abstract reasoning is believed to be strongly associated with EF (e.g., Wachholz & Yassuda, 2011), there is no consensus in the literature.…”

“…Even though several studies showed that forensic patients may have difficulties with abstract reasoning (Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000; Ogilvie et al, 2011; Portnoy et al, 2013; Shumlich et al, 2019), we did not find any differences between the ForFACT group and the control group on the abstract reasoning item. Recent studies that examined similar forensic psychiatric populations compared to healthy controls (Molleman, Driessen, et al, 2022; Molleman, Molleman, et al, 2022; Shumlich et al, 2019), also found no differences in performance between the groups on items of abstract reasoning. Even though abstract reasoning is believed to be strongly associated with EF (e.g., Wachholz & Yassuda, 2011), there is no consensus in the literature.…”

“…(a) We predicted that ForFACT patients would perform worse than healthy controls in overall cognitive functioning, quantified using performance measures on a cognitive screening task. (b) Furthermore, we hypothesized that ForFACT patients would perform specifically worse than healthy controls on items that measure the following specific cognitive domains: EF, attention/concentration, working memory, language and abstract reasoning (see e.g., Molleman, Driessen, et al, 2022; Molleman, Molleman, et al, 2022; Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000; Ogilvie et al, 2011; Portnoy et al, 2013; Shumlich et al, 2019; Smeekens et al, 2021). We did not expect any differences in the performance of ForFACT patients on items that assess other cognitive domains (i.e., episodic memory, orientation, and visuospatial abilities) compared to healthy controls.…”

Can measures of cognitive flexibility and inhibition distinguish forensic psychiatric inpatients from prisoners?

“…Indeed, excessive BAS activation has frequently been linked to impulsivity (i.e., Wallace et al, 2009) and aggression (Wingrove & Bond, 1998). Moreover, a recent study (Molleman et al, 2021) showed that the BIS/BAS self-report questionnaire seemed to dissociate between forensic psychiatric inpatients and prisoners. One next step would be to examine if the BIS/BAS also captured part of the group differences in the likelihood of recidivism or treatment responsivity (Molleman et al, 2021).…”