Psychological Science ›› 2012, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (6): 1416-1422.

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A Study on Affective Decision-making of Children with Different Aggression/Victim Groups by Gambling Task

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  • Received:2011-08-26 Revised:2012-06-27 Online:2012-11-20 Published:2012-11-20

运用赌博任务测查不同攻击/受欺类别儿童的情感决策过程

李亚真1,桑标2   

  1. 1. 福建中医药大学
    2. 华东师范大学
  • 通讯作者: 李亚真

Abstract:

Aggressive behavior has been a hot topic in the field of developmental psychology. One of the important problems in the field of aggressive behavior is that researchers neglect the influence of emotion on children's cognitive procession. In addition, there were few studies that probed the characteristics of decision-making of children who involved in aggression/victim. If researchers take the integrated process of emotion and cognition into considration when exploring children's decision-making, the results would reflect more truely and comprehensively the involved process of aggression/victim in the situation of social information processing. The gambling task paradigm of affective decision-making is thought to induce performance similar to the individual decision-making behavior in real life. A self-designed computer program of standard gambling task, in which 80 test items were divided into 4 blocks, was used therefore to compare decision-making achievement of children belonging to different aggression/victim groups in different periods from the process perspective so as to reveal the features of affective decision-making of children belonging to different aggression/victim groups. The above is the innovation of this study. Gambling task consisted of 80 test items, each involving four doors A, B, C and D, from left to right. The net losses of A and B are equal in general, so are C and D. But A or C belongs to the high-frequency small punishment, while B or D belongs to the low-frequency big punishment. In the long run, it is disadvantageous to choose A and B, but advantageous to choose C and D. Using the way of companion nomination and scales compiled by Masten and Salmivalli, the author first selected out 262 subjects, which were categorized into aggressors/victims and non-involved matching by grade and gender. The results show that there were obvious differences among different groups of children, comprising net difference of advantage-disadvantage selection, decision-making difference(style) of advantage-disadvantage selection and frequence of rewards and punishment. The performance of children in each block reveals the following conclusions. First, in net difference of advantage-disadvantage selection, the overall behavior of non-involved children is better than other groups of children with learning effect of performance gradually improved in the experimental process of decision making. Aggressive victim’s affective decision-making scores are worse than non-involved children’s, with improving prophase performance and unchanging anaphase performance. Indirect-aggressive children’s show strong learning effect during latter stage. Victim’s and direct-aggressive children’s decision-making scores are the worst in the overall trials, the former displaying the course of upgrading in prophase then descending in anaphase, and the latter exhibiting a little ascending of learning effect. Secondly, in acquirement style of advantage-disadvantage selection, all kinds of children manifest finally the trend of selecting more from advantage doors, but non-involved children the earliest display this tendency with the largest scope. Aggressive victim rank the second. Indirect-aggressive children show the last but display large scope afterwards. Victim’s and direct-aggressive children display comparatively smaller scope. Last, in frequency style (high-frequency small punishment vs. low-frequency of big punishment), direct-aggressive children, aggressive victim children and non-involved children select more from choices of high-frequency but smaller punishment, whose risk is low and steady. The three kinds of children present punishment-oriented decision-making style. So, the gambling task paradigm of affective decision-making can distinguish different types of aggression/victim children, and children’s involving in aggression/victim behavior is closely related to their affective decision-making level and style.

Key words: Affective decision-making, VMPFC, IGT, Aggression/Victim

摘要:

攻击行为认知研究存在的一个重要问题是忽视情感对儿童认知加工的影响。考虑了情绪-认知整合过程的儿童行为决策更能全面而真实地反映社会信息加工情境下的攻击/受欺行为卷入过程。情感决策的赌博任务范式被认为能诱发类似于个人真实生活决策的表现,本研究运用计算机程序编制的标准赌博任务,以过程的视角考察了不同攻击/受欺儿童的情感决策特点。结果发现,不同类型儿童的有利-不利选择净分数、对有利-不利选择及奖惩频数的决策偏向存在显著差异。研究结果反映未卷入儿童在赌博任务上的整体表现优于其他类型儿童,攻击-受欺儿童仅次于未卷入儿童;直接攻击、攻击-受欺、未卷入儿童呈现惩罚定向的决策风格,但这三类儿童也表现出截然不同的趋势。

关键词: 情感决策, VMPFC, IGT, 攻击/受欺