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Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime

BACKGROUND: Children with antisocial behaviour show deficits in the perception of emotional expressions in others that may contribute to the development and persistence of antisocial and aggressive behaviour. Current treatments for antisocial youngsters are limited in effectiveness. It has been argu...

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Autores principales: Hubble, Kelly, Bowen, Katharine L., Moore, Simon C., van Goozen, Stephanie H. M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2015
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4486167/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26121148
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132035
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author Hubble, Kelly
Bowen, Katharine L.
Moore, Simon C.
van Goozen, Stephanie H. M.
author_facet Hubble, Kelly
Bowen, Katharine L.
Moore, Simon C.
van Goozen, Stephanie H. M.
author_sort Hubble, Kelly
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Children with antisocial behaviour show deficits in the perception of emotional expressions in others that may contribute to the development and persistence of antisocial and aggressive behaviour. Current treatments for antisocial youngsters are limited in effectiveness. It has been argued that more attention should be devoted to interventions that target neuropsychological correlates of antisocial behaviour. This study examined the effect of emotion recognition training on criminal behaviour. METHODS: Emotion recognition and crime levels were studied in 50 juvenile offenders. Whilst all young offenders received their statutory interventions as the study was conducted, a subgroup of twenty-four offenders also took part in a facial affect training aimed at improving emotion recognition. Offenders in the training and control groups were matched for age, SES, IQ and lifetime crime level. All offenders were tested twice for emotion recognition performance, and recent crime data were collected after the testing had been completed. RESULTS: Before the training there were no differences between the groups in emotion recognition, with both groups displaying poor fear, sadness and anger recognition. After the training fear, sadness and anger recognition improved significantly in juvenile offenders in the training group. Although crime rates dropped in all offenders in the 6 months following emotion testing, only the group of offenders who had received the emotion training showed a significant reduction in the severity of the crimes they committed. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that emotion recognition can be relatively easily improved in youths who engage in serious antisocial and criminal behavior. The results suggest that improved emotion recognition has the potential to reduce the severity of reoffending.
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spelling pubmed-44861672015-07-02 Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime Hubble, Kelly Bowen, Katharine L. Moore, Simon C. van Goozen, Stephanie H. M. PLoS One Research Article BACKGROUND: Children with antisocial behaviour show deficits in the perception of emotional expressions in others that may contribute to the development and persistence of antisocial and aggressive behaviour. Current treatments for antisocial youngsters are limited in effectiveness. It has been argued that more attention should be devoted to interventions that target neuropsychological correlates of antisocial behaviour. This study examined the effect of emotion recognition training on criminal behaviour. METHODS: Emotion recognition and crime levels were studied in 50 juvenile offenders. Whilst all young offenders received their statutory interventions as the study was conducted, a subgroup of twenty-four offenders also took part in a facial affect training aimed at improving emotion recognition. Offenders in the training and control groups were matched for age, SES, IQ and lifetime crime level. All offenders were tested twice for emotion recognition performance, and recent crime data were collected after the testing had been completed. RESULTS: Before the training there were no differences between the groups in emotion recognition, with both groups displaying poor fear, sadness and anger recognition. After the training fear, sadness and anger recognition improved significantly in juvenile offenders in the training group. Although crime rates dropped in all offenders in the 6 months following emotion testing, only the group of offenders who had received the emotion training showed a significant reduction in the severity of the crimes they committed. CONCLUSIONS: The study indicates that emotion recognition can be relatively easily improved in youths who engage in serious antisocial and criminal behavior. The results suggest that improved emotion recognition has the potential to reduce the severity of reoffending. Public Library of Science 2015-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC4486167/ /pubmed/26121148 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132035 Text en © 2015 Hubble et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are properly credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Hubble, Kelly
Bowen, Katharine L.
Moore, Simon C.
van Goozen, Stephanie H. M.
Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title_full Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title_fullStr Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title_full_unstemmed Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title_short Improving Negative Emotion Recognition in Young Offenders Reduces Subsequent Crime
title_sort improving negative emotion recognition in young offenders reduces subsequent crime
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4486167/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26121148
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0132035
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