Responsiveness to distress cues in the child with psychopathic tendencies

This study investigates the psychophysiological responsiveness of children with emotional and behavioral difficulties, divided according to their Psychopathy Screening Device (PSD) scores (Frick and Hare, in press) to distress cues, threatening and neutral stimuli. From this population, 16 high PSD scoring children and 16 low scoring controls were shown slides of these three types of stimuli and their electrodermal responses were recorded. An additional 16 normal developing children in mainstream education were also presented with these stimuli. The high PSD scoring children showed, relative to the controls, reduced electrodermal responses to the distress cues and threatening stimuli. In contrast, the two groups did not differ in their electrodermal responses to the neutral stimuli. The results are interpreted within the Violence Inhibition Mechanism model (Blair, 1995) of Psychopathy.