Dataset Information

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children's Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits.

ABSTRACT: The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered family life, but whether family exposures to and worries about the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted child conduct problems (CP) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits is unknown. Thus, we evaluated 303 parents (M_age = 38.04; SD = 5.21; 92.4% biological mothers) and children (M_age = 6.43; SD = 2.13; 51.8% female) during a four-month period early in the pandemic. We examined associations between parental exposures to COVID-19, parental worries about the pandemic, harsh and warm parenting practices, and child CP and CU traits. Although more parental worries were not directly related to parenting practices, more worry about COVID-19 was specifically related to higher levels of child CP, particularly parental worries about themselves or family members contracting the virus. Our findings add to a growing literature demonstrating the burden that the pandemic has placed on families and its implications for children's mental health.

SUBMITTER: Waller R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7786862 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children's Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits.

Waller Rebecca R Powell Tralucia T Rodriguez Yuheiry Y Corbett Natalie N Perlstein Samantha S White Lauren K LK Barzilay Ran R Wagner Nicholas J NJ

Child psychiatry and human development 20210106 6

The COVID-19 pandemic has dramatically altered family life, but whether family exposures to and worries about the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted child conduct problems (CP) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits is unknown. Thus, we evaluated 303 parents (M<sub>age</sub> = 38.04; SD = 5.21; 92.4% biological mothers) and children (M<sub>age</sub> = 6.43; SD = 2.13; 51.8% female) during a four-month period early in the pandemic. We examined associations between parental exposures to COVID-19, parenta ...[more]

PMID: 33405026

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Project description:ObjectiveLearning to successfully navigate the social world, in particular when to trust others and how to work together with them, is crucial to well-adjusted social development. This is especially the case during adolescence, when individuals are undergoing significant biological and social changes. Adolescents with conduct problems (CP) tend to have difficulties in social relationships and to display aggressive behaviors as well as reduced cooperation with others. This pattern appears to be particularly pronounced in adolescents with CP and high callous-unemotional traits (CP/HCU). However, very little is currently known about the mechanisms that might drive reduced cooperative behaviors in adolescent CP, and whether these differ for individuals with high vs low levels of CU traits.MethodWe used a series of economic games to assess how adolescents with CP/HCU (n = 46), CP, and lower levels of CU traits (CP/LCU) (n = 46), and typically developing adolescents (TD) (n = 59) interacted with social (human) and non-social (computer) partners that varied in their degree of cooperation (trustworthy vs untrustworthy and friendly vs unfriendly), and whether this related to group differences in social preferences (aversion to inequality) and prior beliefs.ResultsAdolescents with CP (both HCU and LCU) had more difficulty than TD adolescents in differentiating between trustworthy and untrustworthy social environments in our task. Adolescents with CP/LCU also had more difficulty coordinating with friendly and unfriendly social partners to produce rewarding outcomes than TD adolescents. Surprisingly, we saw no relationship between participants' inequality aversion or prior beliefs and social learning in our games.ConclusionThese findings indicate that, under controlled experimental conditions, adolescents with CP have more difficulty learning to differentiate between social environments that vary in cooperation, particularly adolescents with CP/LCU. These findings were not explained by inequality aversion or prior beliefs. Our findings also raise important questions regarding methods used to understand the mechanisms underlying social behaviors in adolescents with CP.

Project description:BackgroundChildren who are frequently aggressive or lack empathy show various deficits in their social information processing. Several findings suggest that children with conduct problems (CP) show a tendency to interpret ambiguous situations as hostile (hostile attribution bias) and have difficulties to disengage from negative stimuli (attentional bias). The role that additional callous-unemotional traits (CU-traits) play in these biases is yet unclear. Investigating both attentional and attributional aspects of social information processing in children can help us to understand where anomalies in the processing pathway occur and whether the biases are associated with CP and CU-traits separately or in an interactive manner.MethodsWe compared three groups of children: (a) 25 children with CP and low levels of CU-traits (b) 25 children with CP and elevated levels of CU-traits (c) 50 gender (68% male), age (8-17 years) and intelligence score-matched typically developing children, on a pictorial emotional stroop task and a hostile attribution bias task.ResultsIn contrast to our predictions, there were no significant group differences regarding attentional biases or hostile attribution biases. Boys with CP and high levels of CU-traits showed a significantly higher hostile attribution bias compared to girls with CP and high levels of CU-traits. The attention bias to angry stimuli significantly correlated with the hostile attribution bias. Compared to the control group the CP group with low levels of CU-traits showed a significantly stronger association between the attention bias to angry stimuli and the hostile attribution bias.ConclusionsThe current study provides evidence that boys with CP and high levels of CU-traits interpret ambiguous situations as more hostile than girls do. Our results further provide indications that the interaction of attentional and attributional biases in children with CP might contribute to their increased aggressive behavior.

Dataset Information

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children's Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits.

Publications

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Children's Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits.

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