Brief Report: Interaction between social class and risky decision‐making in children with psychopathic tendencies

Abstract

Objective-Adult psychopaths are thought to have risky decision-making and behavioral disinhibition, but little is known about themoderating effects of psychosocial factors and whether these associations can be observed in children with psychopathic tendencies. This study tests the biosocial hypothesis that social class will moderate psychopathy-neurocognition relationships, with these effects being stronger in children fromhigh social classes.Method-Preadolescent community twins (N = 298) were assessed on decision-making (Iowa Gambling) and behavior inhibition (Porteus Maze) tasks, while psychopathic tendencies and socioeconomic status were assessed by the child's caregiver.Results-A significant interaction was observed whereby risky decision-making was associated with psychopathic tendencies only in children from benign home environments.Conclusions-Findings support a biosocial interaction perspective on child psychopathy, suggesting that risky decision-makingmay particularly predispose to psychopathic traits in children frombenign homebackgrounds. KeywordsPsychopathy; Children; Risky decision-making; Biosocial interaction; Socioeconomic status Several studies have reported biology-antisocial relationships only in individuals with high socioeconomic status (SES, e.g., Raine & Venables, 1981). Such findings are explained by the "social push" hypothesis (Raine, 2002) which argues that where an antisocial child lacks social factors that push or predispose them to antisocial behavior, then biological risk factors more likely explain antisocial behavior. An unresolved question is whether such interaction effects can also be observed in community children with psychopathic tendencies, a construct that is different (albeit related) to antisocial behavior.Neurocognitive functioning deficits (e.g., more risky decision-making, lack of plan and inhibition) have been found in individuals with psychopathic traits -a cluster of interpersonal, affective, and behavioral characteristics including glibness, impulsivity, poor behavior controls, shallow affect, and lack of empathy, guilt, and remorse (Hare, 1991). Psychopathic

Poor performance on the Iowa gambling task in children with obsessive-compulsive disorder

“…Previous studies have used the IGT to assess decision making in children and adolescents with ADHD [21], psychopathic tendencies [22], and self-harm tendencies [23]. One difference from the original task was that play money was converted from U.S. dollars to Japanese yen [24].…”

Do general intellectual functioning and socioeconomic status account for performance on the Children's Gambling Task?

“…In those terms, they argue that the circuitry underlying reward processing (orbitofrontal cortex—OFC) develops earlier than the other circuits of the prefrontal cortex, and thus SES would have a smaller impact over emotional cognition. Furthermore, while some studies have found SES factors to be significantly associated with performance on complex decision-making tasks in pre-adolescents (Gao et al, 2012) and with a delay of gratification task in adolescents (Anokhin et al, 2011) and adults (Green et al, 1996), other studies failed to find such association in kindergarteners (Noble et al, 2005), school-aged children (Noble et al, 2007), and adolescents (Olson et al, 2007). …”

Somatic aphasia: Mismatch of body sensations with autonomic stress reactivity in psychopathy

“…For example, using the Iowa Gambling Task, several studies have found that while nonpsychopathic individuals learned to avoid “risky” decks, psychopaths made more risky decisions over time, indicating their inability to guide behavior based on somatic markers (Blair, Colledge, & Mitchell, 2001; Mitchell, Colledge, Leonard, & Blair, 2002; van Honk, Hermans, Putman, Montagne, & Schutter, 2002). However, some have failed to find this relationship (Blair & Cipolotti, 2000), or have found that the relation is moderated by attention, anxiety, or social status (Blair & Cipolotti, 2000; Gao, Baker, Raine, Wu, & Bezdjian, 2009; Lösel & Schmucker, 2004; Schmitt, Brinkley, & Newman, 1999). Using a different paradigm, Raine and colleagues (Ishikawa, Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, & LaCasse, 2001; Raine, Lencz, Bihrle, LaCasse, & Colletti, 2000) have provided additional supporting evidence.…”