Summaries: the best scientific articles for criminology and criminal behavior summarized

Deficits in empathic abilities are thought to stem from impairments in social interaction exhibited by a person who engages in antisocial behaviour. Empathy requires social attention. When it comes to people who exhibit antisocial behaviour, no study looked into the relationship between social attention and affective and cognitive empathy.

What is the background of this study?

Some children are at high risk of (developing) antisocial behaviour, possibly resulting into receiving a criminal record. In order to help this group and prevent the negative influence on society, an early intervention is required. Other research already showed that a high-risk child comes from a more disadvantaged neighbourhood, has poorer parental guidance, exhibits alterations in brain function and structure and deals with a more problematic emotional functioning. On the other hand, studies show that a high-risk childhood does not inevitably results into a criminal adulthood, which implicates that an adequate intervention can reverse antisocial behaviour. An early intervention is also recommendable given the fact that we are especially capable of emotional and social learning during the phase between childhood and early adolescence.

Empathy and recognizing the emotions of other people are based on the gradual refinement with age of children’s recognition and production of emotional signals. They are learned through experience. A young child that can recognize other’s emotions well, has more social skills and is more popular. A child that is exposed to divergent emotional signals or is adversely treated exhibits several emotional difficulties. Engaging in inappropriate behaviour like antisocial behaviour or aggression results into issues with empathy and the recognition of emotions.

Affective empathy: the ability to experience what it feels like for someone else to experience certain emotions. Cognitive empathy: ability to understand what the thoughts or emotions of someone else might be, without being emotionally involved. Research shows that children with antisocial behaviour have unimpaired cognitive empathy but impaired affective empathy. Unimpaired cognitive empathy was also found in studies that analysed only cognitive empathy. However, empathy was examined through questionnaires. Affective empathy was not measured with psychological measures. Physiological arousal is a objective, direct and reliable measure of affective empathy and has frequently been linked to antisocial behaviour. A verbal report of the emotions someone is experiencing is not the best measure, it would be especially unreliable in case of an antisocial boy (who is likely to have issues with self-reflection and a low verbal IQ). In studies that examined affective empathy through physiological measures, measures of cognitive empathy were excluded. These studies show that children with behaviour disorders exhibited  decreased physiological responses and thus less affective empathy as a reaction to negative emotions. In this study, objective physiological measures will be used for affective empathy, combined with both affective and cognitive empathy.

Naturally, people prefer social information, also known as social attention. During social interaction, information about the emotional and mental state of the other person can be obtained by examining the face, more specific: the eyes. Social attention can be considered as a crucial precursor of empathic responses.

What methods were used?

Who participated?

Data were collected from children recruited through Amsterdam’s PIT-project (Preventive Intervention Trajectory). This program targets children at risk of developing criminal behaviour due to being related to youthful offenders (siblings) or delinquents (parents) or failing at primary school due to extreme antisocial behaviour or frequently being unauthorized absent.

The total study group consisted of 157 children (114 high-risk children, the control group included 43 children). They had an average age of 10 years and attended the same schools. The risk status of the children was confirmed by using the Dutch equivalent of the Teacher Report Form. The children in the control group scored within the normal range on the problem scales (borderline, aggression, rule-breaking behaviour, internalizing problem behaviour), while the high-risk children had high scores on the first three scales. The problem behaviour as described by the parents was identified by using the Dutch equivalent of the Child Behaviour Checklist.

What procedure was followed?

Participants were invited to take tests in accordance with the standard protocol. The children were separately assessed in a non-distracting room. 

What instruments were used?

Stimuli: four video clips were showed: a neutral one (fish in an aquarium) for obtaining baseline electrodermal and cardiovascular activity and three emotional movie clips, presenting various emotions: pain, fear and happiness.

Social attention was assessed through visual scanning patterns: the face and eyes. These patterns were measured by using an eye-tracker (fixation filter) and through hand drawings created by Tobii Studio.

Affective empathy was measured by using electrodes measuring electrodermal and cardiovascular activity. Affective arousal: the difference between baseline and the three emotional clips in electrodermal and cardiovascular activity. Heart rate was used as cardiovascular response variable and skin conductance responses and skin conductance level as electrodermal response variables.

Cognitive empathy was assessed by asking questions about the specific emotions the leading character in the video’s experienced, the intensity and causes of these emotions. 

How were the statistics analysed?

The control group and the high-risk group were compared on intellectual functioning, gender and age. Total fixation duration on the total screen was observed in order to detect possible differences in attention. Group differences were analysed by performing a two-way repeated measures assessment of variance with Dynamic Areas of Interest (eyes and face) and Emotion (pain, fear, happiness) as within-subject factors and Group as between-subjects factor. Three repeated measures assessment of variance were performed to detect differences between groups in heart rate, skin conductance response and skin conductance level as an reaction to the emotion clips with Emotion as within-subject factor and Group as between-subjects factor. MANOVA was used for a comparison between both groups regarding cognitive empathy.

What were the results?

There were no differences between the control group and the high-risk group with regard to gender and age. A significantly lower estimated full scale IQ, a significantly higher score on rule-breaking behaviour, TRF aggression, total internalizing behaviour and total externalizing behaviour were reported in the high-risk group. In comparison to the reports of the teachers, the high-risk children’s parents reported less problematic behaviour (rule breaking and aggression). IQ was excluded from further analyses, since there was no correlation found with empathy or social attention variables.

There was no difference detected between the groups regarding the total fixation duration (attention) to the total screen. The results showed no significant effect of Group on social attention, but a significant effect of Group on Emotion. The differences in fixation duration between face and eyes were biggest for the fear and pain (the negative emotions).

The groups did not differ in heart rate, skin conductance level and skin conductance responses at baseline. There was no effect of Group regarding heart rate, but there was a significant effect of fear and pain (Emotion). An increase in heart rate was observed in the control group during emotion exposure, while a decrease was observed in the high-risk group.

Regarding the skin conductance level, no significant effect of Group was observed. The results showed a significant effect of fear and pain (Emotion). In the high-risk group, a smaller increase in the skin conductance level was observed during the pain clips only.

Regarding skin conductance responses, no significant effect of Group was observed. The results showed a significant effect of fair and pain (Emotion). In the high-risk group, fewer skin conductance responses were observed during the pain clips.

The groups did not differ in cognitive empathy.

What do these results mean?

Some children are at high risk of developing antisocial behaviour and getting involved in criminal activity. A timely intervention could help those children and prevent the negative consequences for society. The study showed that high-risked children have impaired affective empathy when watching emotional video clips.

As to date, the role of social attention was in no other study assessed by using eye-tracking technology and empathy in response to various emotionally relevant events in a research group consisting children at high risk of criminal behaviour. Social attention may be a requirement for empathic response, but the high-risk group showed no impaired social attention. This implies that social attention does not account for the affective empathy deficits. The results of this study challenge the results of other studies, in which a failure in attention to the eyes was considered a cause of fear recognition issues in children with Callous-Unemotional traits. The results of this study showed no abnormality regarding social attention. This could mean that the training provided to children with CU-traits will not be helpful to high-risk children. Future research should also focus on high-risk children and examine their levels of CU-traits.

In accordance with earlier studies on affective and cognitive empathy, this study showed significant differences in affective empathy only. The results suggest that children at high risk of criminal behaviour exhibit a correct recognition and understanding of the emotions expressed in the clips, but found it problematic to experience and empathize with the negative emotions of other people. These results combined with the findings on unimpaired social attention indicate that impaired affective empathy is a crucial component that is connected to antisocial behaviour.

A child that does not understand and share the feelings of the people who suffer from his negative behaviour is expected to continue this behaviour. This study showed that the affective response to watching others in fear or pain was significantly smaller for a high risk child. Deficits in affective empathy can be indicative for other negative behaviours. It is advisable to include fMRI in future research, to examine the potential relation between affective empathy and functional brain networks. This could also provide new insights in the brain mechanisms underlying empathy.

This study shows that affective empathy deficits plays a significant role in developing antisocial behaviour, which should be taken into consideration while developing inventions. Good results have been reported after emotion awareness therapy and compassion training. Programs that focus on increasing emotion awareness could play an important role in future prevention and intervention research.

What is the conclusion?

Children at high risk of developing criminal behaviour - due to having delinquent parents, young offenders as siblings or failing at primary school because of severe antisocial behaviour or absenteeism -  exhibit unimpaired cognitive empathy and social attention but impaired affective empathy. The results of this study show the importance of emotion function (more specific: a reduced affective response) in the development of criminal behaviour and indicate that interventions should focus on affective empathy in order to create a turning point in the negative behaviour of high-risk children.

What is psychopathy?

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterized by a constellation of affective, interpersonal, lifestyle, and antisocial features. People with psychopathy lack empathy, guilt, or remorse, and are callous and have shallow and deficient affect. On an interpersonal level they are grandiose, deceitful, arrogant, and manipulative. From an early age they often engage in planned acts of antisocial behavior and aggression. They can display impulsive and irresponsible behavior. 

What is the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised?

The Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) is the most widely accepted and used conceptualization of psychopathy. It uses two correlated dimensions, namely interpersonal and affective features and chronic antisocial lifestyle. These two dimensions are both divided into two facets. This leads to a four-facet model:

• Interpersonal facet (superficial charm, grandiose sense of self-worth, pathological lying, conning, manipulative).

• Affective facet (shallow affect, lack of empathy, lack or remorse/guilt, failure to accept responsibility for own actions).

• Lifestyle facet (parasitic lifestyle, lack of realistic long-term goals, proneness to boredom, impulsivity, irresponsibility).

• Antisocial facet (juvenile delinquency, poor behavioral controls, early behavioral problems, criminal versatility, revocation of conditional release).

What is the difference between psychopathy and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD)?

Although both these disorders include a lifelong pattern of antisocial behavior, they are distinct. The diagnostic criteria for ASPD mostly focuses on a severe and chronic pattern of antisocial and criminal behavior, whereas psychopathy looks more at personality features with an emphasis on emotional impairments and interpersonal features. Most individuals with psychopathy would match a diagnosis of ASPD, but not many individuals with ASPD match a diagnosis of psychopathy.

What causes psychopathy?

The aetiology of psychopathy is complex. There are contributions of both genetic and environmental risk factors, and gene-environment interactions and correlations. Genetic risk factors at play are autonomic, neurocognitive, and those to do with social information processing, temperament, and personality traits. There are three main forms of neurocognitive disruption found in individuals with psychopathy that are discussed below. Environmental risk factors are prenatal maternal stress, child maltreatment, harsh parental discipline, negative parental emotions, disorganized parent-child attachment, and disrupted family functioning. 

What forms of neurocognitive disruption are found in individuals with psychopathy?

Neurocognitive disruptions are found in three areas:

• Emotional responsiveness. This is expressed via increased risk of anger-based reactive aggression, disrupted empathic and fear responses, reduced aversive conditioning, and impaired emotion expression recognition. 

• Reinforcement-based decision-making. Reduced reinforcement sensitivity or responsiveness results in an individual that makes poorer decisions and is more likely to be impulsive and show frustration-induced aggression.

• Attention. People with psychopathy over-focus on certain features at the expense of other features. They also compromise selective attention when performing basic attentional tasks.

What is known about the brain of people with psychopathy?

Psychopathy is characterized by reduced responses in cortical (the prefrontal and insular cortices) and subcortical (amygdala and striatum) regions. Callous-unemotional traits (including a lack of guilt, lack of empathy, lack of concern over poor performance in important activities, and shallow/deficient affect) are negatively related to grey matter volume and thickness in the amygdala, insular and temporal cortices, but positively associated with the volume of the striatum.

How can psychopathy be treated?

There are no effective treatments for adults with psychopathy, but preliminary interventions that target key neurocognitive disturbances show promising results. Psychopathy is often comorbid with other psychiatric disorders, which increases the risk of physical health problems, accidents, criminality, and educational and employment failure. For this reason it is important to identify children and young people at risk for psychopathy and doing preventative work. Interventions aimed at the antecedents of psychopathic features in children and adolescents are effective.