How does reactivity to frustrative non-reward increase risk for externalizing symptoms?,☆☆

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2015.04.018Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Conduct problems (CPs) are associated with heightened sensitivity to frustration.

  • Children with CP showed faster but not larger changes in heart rate across the task.

  • CP was associated with a marked decrement in P3b amplitude during frustration.

  • Results indicate the need to consider interactions between affect and attention.

Abstract

Frustration is a normative affective response with an adaptive value in motivating behavior. However, excessive anger in response to frustration characterizes multiple forms of externalizing psychopathology. How a given trait subserves both normative and pathological behavioral profiles is not entirely clear. One hypothesis is that the magnitude of response to frustration differentiates normative versus maladaptive reactivity. Disproportionate increases in arousal in response to frustration may exceed normal regulatory capacity, thus precipitating aggressive or antisocial responses. Alternatively, pathology may arise when reactivity to frustration interferes with other cognitive systems, impairing the individual's ability to respond to frustration adaptively. In this paper we examine these two hypotheses in a sample of kindergarten children. First we examine whether children with conduct problems (CP; n = 105) are differentiated from comparison children (n = 135) with regard to magnitude of autonomic reactivity (cardiac and electrodermal) across a task that includes a frustrative non-reward block flanked by two reward blocks. Second we examine whether cognitive processing, as reflected by magnitude of the P3b brain response, is disrupted in the context of frustrative non-reward. Results indicate no differences in skin conductance, but a greater increase in heart rate during the frustration block among children in the CP group. Additionally, the CP group was characterized by a pronounced decrement in P3b amplitude during the frustration condition compared with both reward conditions. No interaction between cardiac and P3b measures was observed, suggesting that each system independently reflects a greater sensitivity to frustration in association with externalizing symptom severity.

Introduction

Theoretical models of affective neuroscience focus on the evolutionary function of emotions, the most basic of which are not only consistently evident across cultures but across a broad range of mammalian species (e.g. Panksepp, 2012). Emotions can be viewed as the activation of primary motivational drives to pursue rewards, defend safety, or withdraw from uncertainty (Harkness et al., 2014). However, extreme, chronic, or contextually dissonant emotions are viewed as the foundation of many major mental health disorders. Thus research is needed to understand how affective processes that support basic behavioral systems can lead to psychopathology. The Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) generated by the National Institute of Mental Health identifies 5 distinct subconstructs of negative affect believed to contribute to a range of mental health disorders from depression to aggression. Among these subconstructs is “frustrative non-reward”, defined as the removal of, or impediment to obtaining, a previously available award.

Section snippets

Frustrative non-reward

The omission of an expected reward results in a decrease in striatal dopamine that signals the discrepancy between the actual versus predicted outcome, and facilitates an adaptive learning response (Porter-Stransky et al., 2013). Theoretical models of attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) posit that deficient processing of non-reward cues contributes to the resistance of behavioral symptoms to normal operant conditioning (Sagvolden et al., 2005). Imaging data provides support for this

Disproportionate affective arousal

It is possible that these clinical conditions are distinguished from normative responses to frustration by the magnitude of affective distress. In the context of acute stress, neural processing in limbic regions becomes prioritized to facilitate sensitivity to affective information (Oei et al., 2012). This re-prioritization can come at the expense of activation in the dorsolateral cortex, a region involved in working memory and other executive systems (Krause-Utz et al., 2012). Researchers have

Disrupted cognitive control

From the behavioral surface, it is difficult to determine exactly what mechanisms underlie the tendency of individuals with externalizing disorders to resort to aggressive behavioral responses to this type of emotional arousal. Because anger in response to frustration is a normal emotion, it is not clear whether it is the affective experience (e.g. anger), or the behavioral response to it (e.g. aggression), that differentiates individuals with externalizing problems. In other words, individuals

Present study

In this study we examine psychophysiological responding to a frustrative non-reward condition to assess whether externalizing problems are associated with greater affective reactivity to frustration, and/or deficient cognitive processing in the context of frustration. Children identified by their kindergarten teachers as displaying externalizing behavior problems were compared with typically developing children during a cognitive task with reward and frustration conditions. We hypothesized that

Method

Data were drawn from a longitudinal clinical trial of a multi-component intervention for children with early onset aggression. Only data from the pre-intervention assessment will be presented here. Participants were drawn from all elementary schools within a single urban school district in which 79% of students are classified as low-income (qualifying for free or reduced price school meals), the majority of households are headed by a single female (69%), and 79% of parents are estimated to have

Task performance

Based on relative model fit criteria, a heterogeneous Toeplitz covariance structure was selected for modeling response accuracy across the three task blocks. The linear mixed model with CP group, block, and group × block effects, including sex as a covariate, indicated a strong effect for block, F (2, 472) = 439.8, p < .001 (adjusted means: Block A = 66.9%, Block B = 57.8%, Block C = 69.8%). Response accuracy in Block B (frustration) was significantly lower than the average accuracy in Blocks A and C

Discussion

Sensitivity to frustration is believed to be at least one mechanism underlying reactive aggressive behavior among individuals with externalizing problems (Blair, 2010). In this study, we examined how children with conduct problems respond physiologically to a laboratory-based frustration condition. We tested two potential processes by which reactivity to frustration could lead to aggressive tendencies: (1) greater autonomic reactivity leading to ‘fight or flight’ levels of sympathetic arousal

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      Citation Excerpt :

      Most studies induce frustration by decreasing, omitting, or delaying reinforcers, blocking goal responses, increasing effort, or making the task progressively more difficult or unsolvable (Bitsakou, Antrop, Wiersema, & Sonuga-Barke, 2006; Broyd et al., 2012; Dor-Shav & Mikulincer, 1990; Goldschmied et al., 2015; Pawliczek et al., 2013; Scheirer, Fernandez, Klein, & Picard, 2002; Scime & Norvilitis, 2006; Weinstein, 1972; Yu, Mobbs, Seymour, Rowe, & Calder, 2014). The impact of these manipulations is analyzed in terms of behavioral, affective, physiological, and brain functioning changes (Abler, Walter, & Erk, 2005; Garcı́a-León, Reyes del Paso, Robles, & Vila, 2003; Gatzke-Kopp et al., 2015; Loya et al., 2019; Tranel, 1983). While the literature on human frustration is abundant, studies involving the SNC paradigm are sparse.

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    Funding for this project was provided by a grant from the Pennsylvania Department of Health and by The Social Science Research Institute at The Pennsylvania State University to the first author, by grant R305B090007 from the Institute of Education Sciences to the second and fourth authors, by grant 5T32 DA017629-07 to the fifth author, and by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada to the last author.

    ☆☆

    The authors also wish to thank Jennifer Ford for her extensive work in managing the complex data collection in this project, the numerous research assistants who contributed to this endeavor, and Jim Stieben for his generosity with the task software. The authors also would like to acknowledge Mark Greenberg, Karen Bierman, and Robert Nix, for their roles in designing, executing, overseeing, and managing the project from which these data are drawn.

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