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Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

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Protective Factors

Until recently, nothing was known about biological factors that can protect against antisocial outcome, but there is now some evidence that heightened autonomic arousal may play such a role. Adolescent antisocial behavior is a risk factor for later criminal behavior, but some antisocial adolescents desist from further antisocial behavior. These individuals, compared to both antisocial boys who become criminal and never antisocial controls show increased electrodermal and cardiovascular arousal and orienting in an English sample (Raine, Venables, & Williams, 1995, 1996). In an independent extension of these findings, Brennan et al. (1997) found that Danish boys who had a criminal father but who did not become criminal themselves were characterized by increased electrodermal and cardiovascular orienting compared to both nonantisocial offspring of noncriminal controls, and criminal offspring with criminal fathers. This latter study is particularly interesting because it illustrates how the social risk factor of having a criminal father moderates the protective role of heightened autonomic functioning in relation to crime outcome.

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Interpretation of Reduced Autonomic Activity in Antisocial Children

Why should low autonomic activity predispose to antisocial and criminal behavior? There are at least two main theoretical interpretations. Fearlessness theory indicates that low levels of arousal are markers for low levels of fear (Raine, 1993). A fearlessness interpretation of low arousal levels assumes that subjects are not actually at "rest," but that instead the rest period of psychophysiological testing represents a mildly stressful paradigm. Low arousal during this period is taken to indicate lack of anxiety and fear. Lack of fear would predispose to antisocial and violent behavior because such behavior (e.g., fights and assaults) requires a degree of fearlessness to execute, whereas lack of fear, especially in childhood, would help explain poor socialization because low fear of punishment would reduce the effectiveness of conditioning. Fearlessness theory receives support from the fact that autonomic underarousal also provides the underpinning for a fearless or uninhibited temperament in infancy and ch ildhood (Fowles, Kochanska, & Murray, 2000; Kagan, 1994; Scarpa, Raine, Venables, & Mednick, 1997b).

A second theory explaining reduced arousal is stimulation-seeking theory (Eysenck, 1977; Quay, 1965; Raine, 1993; Raine, Reynolds, Venables, Mednick, & Farrington, 1998). This theory argues that low arousal represents an unpleasant physiological state, and that antisocial individuals seek stimulation in order to increase their arousal levels back to an optimal or normal level. Antisocial behavior is thus viewed as a form of stimulation-seeking in that committing a burglary, assault, or robbery could be stimulating for some individuals. Stimulation-seeking and fearlessness theories may be complementary perspectives in that a low level of arousal may predispose to crime because it produces some degree of fearlessness, and also because it encourages antisocial stimulation-seeking. Indeed, behavioral measures of stimulation-seeking and fearlessness, both taken at age 3 years in a large sample, predict to aggressive behavior at age 11 years (Raine, Reynolds, et al., 1998). The combined effect of these two influenc es may be more important in explaining antisocial behavior than either influence taken alone.

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Biosocial studies of antisocial and violent behavior in children and adults: a review - 1

Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, August, 2002 by Adrian Raine

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