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Stress Response in Anxious and Nonanxious Disruptive Boys

PHILIP W. HARDEN recently received his PhD in clinical psychology from McGill University and is currently postdoctoral fellow of pediatric psychology at the Montreal Children's Hospital. His research interests center on the identification of risk factors among preadolescent children that contribute to the development of psychopathology.

Robert O. Pihl

ROBERT O. PIHL is a professor in the departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at McGill University. He received his PhD from Arizona State University. His research focuses on the psychobiological foundations of psychopathology, in particular, autonomic reactivity and neuropsychological functioning in familial alcoholism and aggressive behavior.

Frank Vitaro

FRANK VITARO received his PhD in psychology from the University of Montreal. He is a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal and a member of the Research Unit on Children's Psychosocial Maladjustment. His current interests include the social-cognitive functioning of aggressive children and the prevention of aggression. He also examines risk and protective factors relative to delinquency and substance abuse in adolescents.

Paul L. Gendreau

PAUL L. GENDREAU earned his MSc from the University of Montreal and is pursuing his doctorate in psychology at the University of North Carolina. He has studied facial expressions of emotion in children and is currently researching the dopaminergic mediation of social reactivity (fear-like behaviors) in mice.

Richard E. Tremblay

RICHARD E. TREMBLAY is a professor of psychology at the University of Montreal and director of the Research Unit on Children's Psychosocial Maladjustment. After receiving his PhD from the University of London, he worked to establish longitudinal research on physically aggressive behavior in children. He is currently organizing multidisciplinary teams to investigate the development of psychopathology from pre-birth to adulthood.

Autonomic reactivity to cognitive stress was assessed in 51 10-year-old boys who had been assigned, based on teacher-rated evaluations of disruptive and anxious behavior, to one of three groups: Disruptive (n = 18), Anxious–Disruptive (n = 18), or Controls (n = 15). Socioeconomic status and familial disadvantageness were equivalent among the groups. Disruptive boys were more aggressive than Controls, although anxiety significantly moderated physical aggression. Autonomic parameters were examined during a mental arithmetic stress task that included performance incentives and response costs. Electrodermal activity, cardiac reactivity, and muscle tension were higher in the Anxious-Disruptive group. The nonanxious disruptive boys (Disruptive group) were electrodermally underaroused during cognitive stress. Reward sensitivity to monetary gain and loss was similar among the groups. The study supports the use of psychophysiological assessments of stress adaptation to delineate patterns of individual differences among children at risk for developing behavioral disorders.

Journal of Emotional and Behavioral Disorders, Vol. 3, No. 3, 183-190 (1995)
DOI: 10.1177/106342669500300308


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