Background
Some conduct-disordered
youths have high levels of callous unemotional traits and meet the DSM-5’s
“with limited prosocial emotions” (LPE) specifier. These youths often do aggressive,
self-benefitting acts that cost others. We previously developed a task, the
AlAn’s game, which asks participants to repeatedly decide whether to accept or
reject offers in which they will receive money but a planned charity donation
will be reduced. In our prior work, more "costly helping" (i.e.,
rejecting the offered money and protecting the donation) was associated with
lower callous unemotional traits. Here we extend that prior work in a larger
sample of adolescent male patients with serious conduct problems and controls,
and test whether this association is mediated specifically by a Moral Elevation
response (i.e., a positive emotional response to another’s
act of virtue).
Methods
The adolescent male
participants were: 45 patients (23 with LPE) and 26 controls, who underwent an
extensive phenotypic assessment including a measure of Moral Elevation. About 1
week later participants played the AlAn’s game.
Results
All AlAn’s game outcomes
demonstrated significant group effects: (1) money taken for self (p = 0.02);
(2) money left in the charitable donation (p = 0.03); and, (3) costly helping
(p = 0.047). Controls took the least money and did the most costly helping,
while patients with LPE took the most money and did the least costly helping.
Groups also significantly differed in post-stimulus Moral Elevation scores (p =
0.005). Exploratory analyses supported that the relationship between callous
unemotional traits and costly helping on the AlAn’s game may be mediated in
part by differences in Moral Elevation.
Conclusions
The AlAn's game provides
a standardized behavioral measure associated with callous unemotional traits.
Adolescents with high levels of callous unemotional traits engage in fewer
costly helping behaviors, and those differences may be related to blunting of
positive emotional responses.
Below: Examples of the different trial
types in the AlAn’s game.
Panel A shows
an Active Trial where the participant will receive 64 cents and the Red Cross
donation will be reduced by 2 cents. Participants are asked to accept or reject
this offer. Panel B shows
an Attentional Control Trial where the participant will lose 2 cents and the
Red Cross donation will be reduced by 8 cents. We term this kind of Attention
Control trials, “Logically-Reject” Trials. Panel C shows an Attention Control Trial where
the participant will gain 32 cents and the Red Cross donation won’t change. We
term these “Logically-Accept” Trials.Panel D shows a Calculation Trial where the You
number (+8) is not bigger than the Red Cross number +16). Note: The circle
remains red for 5 seconds, allowing participants to view the trial content.
Then the circle turns green and subjects have 1 second to press either yes
(accept) vs. no (reject).
Antonio Verdejo-García, Editor
Division of
Substance Dependence, Department of Psychiatry, University of Colorado School
of Medicine, Denver, Colorado, United States of America
University of
Granada, SPAIN
