Lecture 16 - Conduct Problems

Question 1

What is ODD characterised by?

Answer 1

Negative, hostile and defiant behaviour, including loss of temper, arguments with adults and vindictiveness. Heterogenous population.

Question 2

What are the three dimensions of ODD?

Answer 2

• Angry/irritable mood: poor negative affect management, grumpiness, related to anxiety/mood disorders, resentful.
• Argumentative/defiant: argues with authority figures, deliberately annoys others, blames others for their behaviour.
• Vindictiveness: child proactively hurts others. Emphasis on proactive aggression (angry to get what they want). Related to callousness, empathic deficits and instrumental aggression.

Question 3

What is Pattern’s Coercion Theory?

Answer 3

Operant conditioning, where the child ignores the parent and the conflict escalates. Eventually, the child complies (negative reinforcement) and the parent is relieved (positive reinforcement). As this occurs multiple times a day, both responses are heavily reinforced, escalating the conflicts further.

Question 4

What are Conduct Disorders characterised by?

Answer 4

Behaviour where the basic rights of others or major age-appropriate societal norms are violated.

Question 5

What does childhood-onset type CD entail?

Answer 5

One criterion of CD is present before age 10.

Neurocognitive risk factors, personality risk factors and probable coercive parent-child dynamics.

Question 6

What does adolescent-onset type CD entail?

Answer 6

More normative and people tend to grow out of it. In boys, normative rebellion is age 13 and age 16 in girls, so any major deviance is concerning.

Question 7

What do high CU traits suggest? (5)

Answer 7

Severe and chronic emotion dysregulation, proactive aggression, reward-dominance and under-reactive to emotion. Strong genetic factor.