Accidental and Ambiguous Situations Reveal Specific Social Information Processing Biases and Deficits in Adolescents with Low Intellectual Level and Clinical Levels of Externalizing Behavior.

Accidental and Ambiguous Situations Reveal Specific Social Information Processing Biases and Deficits in Adolescents with Low Intellectual Level and Clinical Levels of Externalizing Behavior. J Abnorm Child Psychol. 2020 Aug 13;: Authors: Van Rest MM, Van Nieuwenhuijzen M, Kupersmidt JB, Vriens A, Schuengel C, Matthys W Abstract Addressing aggression in youth requires understanding of the range of social problem situations that may lead to biased social information processing (SIP). The present study investigated situation-specificity of SIP and analyzed whether SIP deficits and biases are found in ambiguous as well as clearly accidental situations in adolescents with clinical levels of externalizing behavior or with low intellectual level, congruent with mild intellectual disability. Adolescents (N = 220, Mage = 15.21) completed a SIP test on a mobile app with six videos with ambiguous, hostile, and accidental social problems. Caretakers, teachers, and adolescents themselves reported on youth externalizing behavior problems. In accidental situations specifically, adolescents with low IQ scores more often attributed purposeful intent to perpetrators than peers with borderline or average IQ scores. In accidental situations, adolescents with clinical levels of externalizing behavior generated and selected more aggressive responses than nonclinical adolescents, regardless of their cognitive level. In line with previous literatur...
Source: Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology - Category: Psychiatry & Psychology Authors: Tags: J Abnorm Child Psychol Source Type: research