Cool and Hot Executive Functions in Relation to Aggression and Testosterone/Cortisol Ratios in Male Prisoners

Abstract

‘Cool’ executive functions (EF) refer to logical and strategic cognitive processes such as planning and reasoning, whereas ‘hot’ EF include affect-driven cognitive processes, such as risk-taking in decision making. In the present crosssectional study was investigated whether prisoners perform worse than non-prisoners on measures of hot and cool EF. Subsequent objectives were to determine if performance on tasks of executive functioning was related to measures of (reactive and proactive) aggression within the offender group, and whether testosterone and cortisol influenced the latter relationship. Male prisoners (n = 125) and a non-offender control group (n = 32) completed frequently applied measures of hot and cool EF (assessed with the Iowa Gambling task and Wisconsin Card Sorting Task respectively). Aggression characteristics in prisoners were assessed through self-report questionnaires, behavioural observations, and conviction histories. Endogenous testosterone and cortisol levels were obtained through saliva samples, while prenatal testosterone exposure was determined using the finger length of the index and ring fingers (the ‘2D:4D ratio’). The results indicated that prisoners performed significantly worse than non-prisoners on cool EF, and to a lesser extent on hot EF, but no meaningful relationship could be proven between measures of EF and aggression in the offender group. Weak to moderate significant correlations were found between testosterone/cortisol ratios (not prenatal testosterone exposure) and hot EF as well as self-reported aggression. These results lead to the conclusion that prisoners show significant problems in cool and hot EF compared to non-prisoners. These problems are not clearly associated with characteristics of aggression, but preliminary results indicate that these may be related to having high endogenous testosterone levels relative to cortisol levels.

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

“…The results showed that our measures obtained using the CPT and the emotional Stroop task did not have sufficient discriminatory power, as the offender groups and non-offender healthy controls did not differ on these tasks. These findings are not in line with literature indicating correlations between deficits in inhibitory control and criminal behavior (De Brito et al, 2013;Kuin et al, 2019;Morgan & Lilienfeld, 2000;Ogilvie et al, 2011;Portnoy et al, 2013). Our results also differ from a recent study reporting that forensic psychiatric inpatients displayed poorer performance on inhibitory control tasks compared to offenders without a mental disorder (Shumlich et al, 2019).…”