Social cognition in Intermittent Explosive Disorder and aggression.
Social-emotional information processing (SEIP) was assessed in individuals with current DSM-5 Intermittent Explosive Disorder (IED: n = 100) and in healthy (n = 100) and psychiatric (n = 100) controls using a recently developed and validated self-rated questionnaire. SEIP vignettes depicted both direct aggressive and relationally aggressive scenarios of a socially ambiguous nature and were followed by questions assessing subjects' reactions and judgments about the vignettes. IED subjects differed from both healthy and psychiatric controls in all SEIP components. While hostile attribution was highly related to history of aggression, it was also directly correlated with negative emotional response. Further analysis revealed that this component, as well as response valuation and response efficiency, rather than hostile attribution, best explained history of aggressive behavior. A reformulated SEIP model, including self-reported history of childhood trauma, found that negative emotional response and response efficiency were the critical correlates for history of aggressive behavior. Psychosocial interventions of aggressive behavior in IED subjects may do well to include elements that work to reduce the emotional response to social threat and that work to restructure social cognition so that the tendency towards overt, or relationally, aggressive responding is reduced.
Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Chicago, United States. Electronic address: ecoccaro@yoda.bsd.uchicago.edu.
Emil F
EF
Coccaro
Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Chicago, United States.
Jennifer R
JR
Fanning
Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Chicago, United States.
Sarah K
SK
Keedy
Clinical Neuroscience and Psychopharmacology Research Unit, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neuroscience, The Pritzker School of Medicine, The University of Chicago, United States.
Royce J
RJ
Lee
D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology*; D007174:Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders / Q000523:psychology*; D056348:Emotional Intelligence; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales; D057566:Self Report; D012919:Social Behavior; D012938:Social Perception; D018709:Statistics, Nonparametric; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D055815:Young Adult
Aggression; Hostile attribution; Negative emotion; Social emotional information processing