UVM Theses and Dissertations
Format:
Print
Author:
Thomas, Jamila N.
Dept./Program:
Psychology
Year:
2012
Degree:
Ph. D.
Abstract:
Individuals with elevated levels of Callous-Unemotional (CD) traits (e.g., lack of empathy and guilt, poverty of emotional reaction) have been found to have deficits in the recognition of fear. Empirical findings indicate that this fear blindness may be best accounted for by a lack of spontaneous fixation on the eyes (Dadds et al., 2006.) In studies focusing primarily on instructing these individuals to look directly at the eyes of facial stimuli, the fear recognition deficits have been temporarily corrected. This study examined whether juveniles with CD traits have sustained recognition of fearful faces after being administered repeated eye-gaze instruction. A secondary goal included investigating whether this repeated instruction and the consequent fear recognition also generalized to increased attention to non-facial cues and empathic responding. The sample included 30 youths, ages 14 to 17 recruited from the Woodside Juvenile Rehabilitation Center (Colchester, Vermont).
Participants were randomly assigned to 2 experimental groups, with fifteen receiving the eye-gaze instruction twice (intervention group) and fifteen receiving the instruction only once (control group). Linear mixed model analyses using maximum likelihood estimation were used to investigate whether fear recognition, response to non-facial distress and threat stimuli, and empathy trajectories differed for the two study groups across the waves of data collection. Most importantly, these analyses assessed whether the trajectories could be accounted for by differences in the level of CD traits. Findings indicated that improvements in fear recognition for participants in the intervention group with elevated levels of CD traits were greater than the improvements for participants in the control group with elevated levels. The difference in these improvements was sustained across waves of data collection, suggesting that additional eye-gaze instruction sustained the improvements in fear recognition. Trajectories ofattention to non-facial distress stimuli, attention to threat stimuli, as well as empathic responding did not vary based on CD traits or other predictors.
Participants were randomly assigned to 2 experimental groups, with fifteen receiving the eye-gaze instruction twice (intervention group) and fifteen receiving the instruction only once (control group). Linear mixed model analyses using maximum likelihood estimation were used to investigate whether fear recognition, response to non-facial distress and threat stimuli, and empathy trajectories differed for the two study groups across the waves of data collection. Most importantly, these analyses assessed whether the trajectories could be accounted for by differences in the level of CD traits. Findings indicated that improvements in fear recognition for participants in the intervention group with elevated levels of CD traits were greater than the improvements for participants in the control group with elevated levels. The difference in these improvements was sustained across waves of data collection, suggesting that additional eye-gaze instruction sustained the improvements in fear recognition. Trajectories ofattention to non-facial distress stimuli, attention to threat stimuli, as well as empathic responding did not vary based on CD traits or other predictors.