Memory for angry faces, impulsivity, and problematic behavior in adolescence

Adolescence; Emotional faces; Impulsivity; Memory bias; Problematic behavior; Social information processing; Adolescent; Anger; Attention; Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders; Attention Deficit Disorder with Hyperactivity; Conduct Disorder; Facial Expression; Female; Happiness; Hostility; Humans; Impulsive Behavior; Internal-External Control; Male; Mental Recall; Pattern Recognition, Visual; Personal Construct Theory; Personality Assessment; Projection; Switzerland

Abstract :

[en] Research has shown that cognitive processes like the attribution of hostile intention or angry emotion to others contribute to the development and maintenance of conduct problems. However, the role of memory has been understudied in comparison with attribution biases. The aim of this study was thus to test if a memory bias for angry faces was related to conduct problems in youth. Adolescents from a junior secondary school were presented with angry and happy faces and were later asked to recognize the same faces with a neutral expression. They also completed an impulsivity questionnaire. A teacher assessed their behavior. The results showed that a better recognition of angry faces than happy faces predicted conduct problems and hyperactivity/inattention as reported by the teacher. The memory bias effect was more pronounced for impulsive adolescents. It is suggested that a memory bias for angry faces favors disruptive behavior but that a good ability to control impulses may moderate the negative impact of this bias. © 2007 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC.

Disciplines :

Neurosciences & behavior

Author, co-author :

D'Acremont, Mathieu; Swiss Centre for Affective Sciences, University of Geneva, Rue des Battoirs 7, CH-1205 Geneva, Switzerland

Van der Linden, Martial ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département de Psychologie > Département de Psychologie

Language :

English

Title :

Memory for angry faces, impulsivity, and problematic behavior in adolescence

Publication date :

2007

Journal title :

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology

ISSN :

0091-0627

Publisher :

Kluwer Academic/Plenum Publishers, New York, United States - New York

Volume :

Issue :

Pages :

313-324

Peer reviewed :

Peer Reviewed verified by ORBi

Funders :

NCCR - Swiss National Centre of Competence in Research

Available on ORBi :

since 29 December 2019

Statistics

Number of views

46 (2 by ULiège)

Number of downloads

1 (1 by ULiège)

More statistics

Scopus citations^®

Scopus citations^®
without self-citations

OpenCitations

Bibliography

d'Acremont, M. (2005). Les conduites antisociales chez l'adolescent: Le rôle de l'impulsivité, des capacités de prise de décision, et des biais cognitifs [Antisocial behavior in adolescence: The role of impulsivity, decision-making, and cognitive biases]. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Geneva, Geneva.
d'Acremont, M., & Van Der Linden, M. (2005). Adolescent impulsivity: Findings from a community sample. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 34, 427-435.
d'Acremont, M., & Van Der Linden, M. (2006). Confirmatory factor analysis of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire in a Community Sample of French-Speaking Adolescents. Manuscript under revision.
Aiken, L. S., & West, S. G. (1991). Multiple regression: Testing and interpreting interactions. California: Sage Publications.
Bechara, A., & Van Der Linden, M. (2005). Decision-making and impulse control after frontal lobe injuries. Current Opinion in Neurology, 18, 734-739.
Belsky, J., Friedman, S. L., & Hsieh, K. H. (2001). Testing a core emotion-regulation prediction: Does early attentional persistence moderate the effect of infant negative emotionality on later development. Child Development, 72, 123-133.
Bruce, V., & Young, A. (1986). Understanding face recognition. British Journal of Psychology, 77, 305-327.
Cohen, J. (1988). Statistical power analysis for the behavioral sciences. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Colder, C. R., & Stice, E. (1998). A longitudinal study of the interactive effects of impulsivity and anger on adolescent problem behavior. Journal of Youth and Adolescence, 27, 255-274.
Cornoldi, C., Marzocchi, G. M., Belotti, M., Caroli, M. G., De Meo, T., & Braga, C. (2001). Working memory interference control deficit in children referred by teachers for ADHD symptoms. Child Neuropsychology, 7, 230-240.
Crick, N. R., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). A review and reformulation of social information processing mechanisms in children's social adjustment. Psychological Bulletin, 115, 74-101.
D'Argembeau, A., Van Der Linden, M., Etienne, A. M., & Comblain, C. (2003). Identity and expression memory for happy and angry faces in social anxiety. Acta Psychologica, 114, 1-15.
Davidson, R. J. (2004). What does the prefrontal cortex "do" in affect: Perspectives on frontal EEG asymmetry research. Biological Psychology, 67, 219-233.
Dodge, K. A., Bates, J. E., & Pettit, G. S. (1990). Mechanisms in the cycle of violence. Science, 250, 1678-1683.
Dodge, K. A., & Frame, C. L. (1982). Social cognitive biases and deficits in aggressive boys. Child Development, 53, 620-635.
Dodge, K. A., Laird, R., Lochman, J. E., Zeli, A., & Conduct Problems Prevention Research Group. (2002). Multidimensional latentconstruct analysis of children's social information processing patterns: Correlations with aggressive behavior problems: The clinical assessment of children and adolescents. Psychological Assessment, 14, 60-73.
Dodge, K. A., & Newman, J. P. (1981). Biased decision-making processes in aggressive boys. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 90, 375-379.
Eisenberg, N., Guthrie, I. K., Fabes, R. A., Shepard, S., Losoya, S., Murphy, B. C., et al. (2000). Prediction of elementary school children's externalizing problem behaviors from attention and behavioral regulation and negative emotionality. Child Development, 71, 1367-1382.
Fombonne, E., d'Acremont, M., Van Der Linden, M., Capron, C., Maufroy, M., & Proust, L. (2005). Questionnaire Points forts-Points faibles (SDQ-Fra) [Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire: One-sided informant-rated version for teachers and parents of 4-16 year olds]. Retrieved from http://www.sdqinfo.com/d8.html.
Gerbing, D. W., Ahadi, S. A., & Patton, J. H. (1987). Toward a conceptualization of impulsivity: Components across the behavioral and self-report domains. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 22, 357-379.
Goodman, R. (2001). Psychometric properties of the strengths and difficulties questionnaire. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 40, 1337-1345.
Goodman, R. (1997). The strengths and difficulties questionnaire: A research note. Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry, 38, 581-586.
Gouze, K. R. (1987). Attention and social problem solving as correlates of aggression in preschool males. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 15, 181-197.
Harmon-Jones, E., & Allen, J. J. B. (1998). Anger and frontal brain activity: EEG asymmetry consistent with approach motivation despite negative affective valence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 1310-1316.
Howell, D. (1998). Méthodes statistiques en sciences humaines [Statistical methods for psychology]. Paris: De Boeck Université.
Lochman, J. E., & Dodge, K. A. (1994). Social-cognitive processes of severely violent, moderately aggressive, and nonaggressive boys. Journal of Consulting Clinical Psychology, 62, 366-374.
Lockhart, R. S., & Murdock, B. B. (1970). Memory and the theory of signal detection. Psychological Bulletin, 74, 100-109.
Luengo, M. A., Carrillo-de la-Pena, M. T., Otero, J. M., & Romero, E. (1994). A short-term longitudinal study of impulsivity and antisocial behavior. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 66, 542-548.
Lundqvist, D., Flykt, A., & Öhman, A. (1998). Karolinska directed emotional faces set [Data file]. Stockholm: Department of Neurosciences, Karolinska Hospital.
MacCallum, R. C., Zhang, S., Preacher, K. J., & Rucker, D. D. (2002). On the practice of dichotomization of quantitative variables. Psychological Methods, 7, 19-40.
Meltzer, H., Gatward, R., Goodman, R., & Ford, T. (2000). Mental health of children and adolescents in Great Britain. Retrieved from http://www.sdqinfo.com/b8.html. London: The Stationery Office.
Milich, R., & Dodge, K. A. (1984). Social information processing in child psychiatric populations. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 12, 471-489.
Orobio-de Castro, B., Veerman, J. W., Koops, W., Bosch, J. D., & Monshouwer, H. J. (2002). Hostile attribution of intent and aggressive behavior: A meta-analysis. Child Development, 73, 916-934.
Patterson, G. R., DeGarmo, D. S., & Knutson, N. (2000). Hyperactive and antisocial behaviors: Comorbid or two points in the same process. Development and Psychopathology, 12, 91-106.
R Development Core Team (2006). R: A language and environment for statistical computing (Version 2.3.0) [Computer software]. Retrieved from http://www.r-project.org. Vienna, Austria: R Foundation for Statistical Computing.
Rosenthal, R., Rosnow, R., & Rubin, D. (2000). Contrasts and effect sizes in behavioral research: A correlation approach. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Rusting, C. L., & Nolen-Hoeksema, S. (1998). Regulating responses to anger: Effects of rumination and distraction on angry mood. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 74, 790-803.
Schafer, J. L., & Graham, J. W. (2002). Missing data: Our view of the state of the art. Psychological Methods, 7, 147-177.
Schermelleh-Engel, K., & Moosbrugger, H. (2003). Evaluating the fit of structural equation models: Test of significance and descriptive goodness-of-fitmeasures. Methods of Psychological Research Online, 8, 23-74.
Schippell, P. L., Vasey, M. W., Cravens-Brown, L. M., & Bretveld, R. A. (2003). Suppressed attention to rejection, ridicule, and failure cues: A unique correlate of reactive but not proactive aggression in youth. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, 32, 40-55.
Schmidt, F. L. (1996). Statistical significance testing and cumulative knowledge in psychology: Implications for training of researchers. Psychological Methods, 1, 115-129.
Schultz, D., Izard, C. E., & Bear, G. (2004). Children's emotion processing: Relations to emotionality and aggression. Development and Psychopathology, 16, 371-387.
Slaby, R. G., & Guerra, N. G. (1988). Cognitive mediators of aggression in adolescent offenders: 1. Assessment. Developmental Psychology, 24, 580-88.
Snodgrass, J. G., & Corwin, J. (1988). Pragmatics of measuring recognition memory: Applications to dementia and amnesia. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 117, 34-50.
Teichner, G., & Golden, C. J. (2000). The relationship of neuropsychological impairment to conduct disorder in adolescence: A conceptual review. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 5, 509-528.
Tutus, A., Kibar, M., Sofuoglu, S., Basturk, M., & Gönül, A. S. (1998). A technetium-99m hexamethylpropylene amine oxime brain single-photon emission tomography study in adolescent patients with major depressive disorder. European Journal of Nuclear Medicine and Molecular Imaging, 25, 601-606.
Van der Linden, M., d'Acremont, M., Zermatten, A., Jermann, F., Laroi, F., Willems, S., et al. (2006). A French adaptation of the UPPS impulsive behavior scale: Confirmatory factor analysis in a sample of undergraduate students. European Journal of Psychological Assessment, 22, 38-42.
Venables, W. N., & Ripley, B. D. (2002). Modern applied statistics with S. New-York: Springer.
Webster-Stratton, C., & Lindsay, D. W. (1999). Social competence and early-onset conduct problems: Issues in assessment. Journal of Child Clinical Psychology, 28, 25-93.
Whalen, C. K., Jamner, L. D., Henker, B., Delfino, R. J., & Lozano, J. M. (2002). The ADHD spectrum and everyday life: Experience sampling of adolescent moods, activities, smoking, and drinking. Child Development, 73, 209-227.
Whiteside, S. P., & Lynam, D. R. (2001). The Five Factor Model and impulsivity: Using a structural model of personality to understand impulsivity. Personality and Individual Differences, 30, 669-689.
Wilkinson, L. (1999). Statistical methods in psychology journals: Guidelines and explanations. American Psychologist, 54, 594-604.
Zermatten, A., Van der Linden, M., d'Acremont, M., Jermann, F., & Bechara, A. (2005). Impulsivity and decision making. The Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease, 193, 647-650.