NCJ Number
85575
Journal
Journal of Personality and Social Psychology Volume: 43 Issue: 4 Dated: (October 1982) Pages: 769-774
Date Published
1982
Length
6 pages
Annotation
This article examines whether the reduced EDR of undersocialized individuals should be conceptualized in terms of reduced inhibitory control rather than in terms of reduced aversive processes and whether the reduced EDR actually relates to relevant behavior of undersocialized young adults.
Abstract
Antisocial behavior patterns have been hypothesized to result in part from a reduced physiological component of fear, anxiety, and avoidance responses. Electrodermal correlates of antisocial personality have been consistent with such a model, but evidence that the reduced electrodermal response (EDR) of sociopathic and delinquency-prone individuals actually plays a role in their behavior is sparse. Subjects high and low on a socialization scale (California Psychological Inventory) performed a nonstressful response-conflict (or interference) task while the EDR was recorded. As predicted by the weak inhibitory control model, low-socialization subjects gave a larger EDR on response conflict than on control trials less frequently than did high-socialization subjects and correspondingly, committed more errors by failing to inhibit a dominant behavioral response. (Publisher abstract)