EMOTION DIAGNOSTIC FOR PRESCHOOLERS PSYCHOPATHOLOGY

学龄前儿童心理病理学情绪诊断

• 批准号: 6207289
• 负责人: MICHAEL POTEGAL
• 金额: $ 7.23万
• 依托单位: UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2000
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2000-08-01 至 2002-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/6207289
• 关键词: aggression; angers; attention deficit disorder; behavior prediction; child behavior disorders; clinical research; cryings; emotions; human subject; mental disorder diagnosis; personality; preschool child (1-5)

Multidimensional scaling and factor analysis of tantrum descriptions provided by parents indicate that tantrums consist of two main sets of behaviors. Anger-related behaviors, e.g., shouting, hitting, kicking, stamping, or throwing, are maximal at tantrum onset and decline within a few minutes. Whining, comfort-seeking, and crying are distress-signalling behaviors. Crying occurs with a probability of about 50 percent at tantrum onset and increases in probability and intensity throughout the tantrum; comfort-seeking increases sharply toward the end. Further evidence for the separability of anger and distress comes from our study of right/left hemisphere EEG asymmetries in tantrum prone and non tantrum prone 4 year olds in which there was a significant correlation of right frontal cortex activation with facial expressions of sadness while left posterior temporal activation was associated with both parental reports and laboratory measures of anger. Although independent, anger and distress overlap in the tantrums of most children. With clinical psychopathology, however, tantrum patterns may become exaggerated in one or another direction. Several lines of evidence suggest that 4 year olds presenting primarily with externalizing behavior disorders may have frequent, predominantly angry tantrums in which they are more likely to run away than throw themselves down. Four year olds with primarily internalizing emotional disorders may have prolonged, predominantly distress related tantrums in which they are more likely to seek comfort and/or throw themselves down than run away. We propose to test this hypothesis by training parents of externalizing and internalizing 4 year olds to record their children's tantrums. We propose to determine if tantrum characteristics predict the reactions of these children to emotion eliciting situations in the laboratory. Some physiological indices suggest that baseline levels of physiological arousal and stress are lower in externalizing children and higher in internalizing children. We propose to test the hypotheses that skin conductance baseline levels and reactivity may be inversely associated with tantrum anger while salivary cortisol baseline levels and reactivity may be directly related to tantrum distress. Children typically relinquish tantrums by their fifth year, studies have shown that tantrums persisting to age 8 are strongly prognostic of poor adjustment. We propose to extend this to a younger age by testing whether the frequency, duration, or behavioral content (anger and/or distress) of tantrums at 4 years of age predict the persistence of tantrums and the severity of psychopathology at 5 years.

父母提供的发脾描述的多维缩放和因子分析表明，发脾气由两种主要行为组成。 与愤怒有关的行为，例如大喊，击打，踢，冲压或投掷，发脾气最大，几分钟之内下降。 抱怨，寻求舒适和哭泣是遇险信号行为。哭泣发生在发脾气时的概率约为50％，整个发脾气的概率和强度增加。寻求舒适的人在最后急剧增加。进一步证明愤怒和困扰性的进一步证据来自我们对发脾气的右/左半球不对称的研究，而无脾气暴躁的4岁儿童则是右额叶皮质激活与左后临时激活的面部表情的显着相关性，而父母的愤怒和实验室的愤怒和实验性量相关。虽然是独立的，但愤怒和困扰重叠了大多数儿童的发脾气。 然而，随着临床心理病理学，发脾气模式可能会在一个或另一个方向上夸大。几条证据表明，主要出现外在化行为障碍的4岁儿童可能会经常发脾气，他们更有可能逃跑而不是丢掉自己。 主要具有内在性情绪障碍的四岁儿童可能已经长时间延长了与苦难相关的发脾气，在这种情况下，他们更有可能寻求舒适和/或抛弃自己。 我们建议通过培训父母外在化和内部化4岁的孩子记录孩子的发脾气来检验这一假设。 我们建议确定发脾气的特征是否预测了这些孩子对实验室中引起的情绪情况的反应。 一些生理指标表明，在外部化儿童中，生理唤醒和压力的基线水平较低，而内在儿童中则较高。 我们建议测试皮肤电导的基线水平和反应性可能与发脾气愤怒相关的假设，而唾液皮质醇基线水平和反应性可能与发脾气直接相关。 儿童通常会在第五年之前放弃发脾气，研究表明，发脾气持续到8岁，对调整不良的预后很强。我们建议通过测试4岁时发脾气的频率，持续时间或行为内容（愤怒和/或困扰）是否可以预测发脾气的持久性以及5岁时精神病理学的严重程度，将其扩展到年轻时代。