High autonomic arousal and electrodermal orienting at age 15 years as protective factors against criminal behavior at age 29 years.

OBJECTIVE Nothing is known about biological factors that protect a predisposed individual from becoming criminal. This 14-year prospective study tested the hypothesis that antisocial adolescents who desist from crime by age 29 have greater physiological arousal and orienting than antisocial adolescents who become adult criminals. METHOD Physiological arousal and orienting were measured in 101 unselected 15-year-old male schoolchildren. Of these, 17 antisocial adolescents who desisted from adult crime (desistors) were matched on adolescent antisocial behavior and demographic variables with 17 antisocial adolescents who became criminal by age 29 (criminals), and 17 nonantisocial, noncriminal normal subjects. RESULTS Desistors had significantly higher electrodermal and cardiovascular arousal and higher electrodermal orienting than the criminal group. CONCLUSIONS This is the first study to report biological factors that protect against the development of criminal behavior. The findings suggest that individuals predisposed to adult crime by virtue of showing antisocial behavior in adolescence may be protected from committing crime by high levels of autonomic arousal and orienting.

[1]  D P Farrington,et al.  Early Predictors of Adolescent Aggression and Adult Violence , 1989, Violence and Victims.

[2]  Detection of transient responses in adult heart rate. , 1978, Psychophysiology.

[3]  P. Venables,et al.  Better Autonomic Conditioning and Faster Electrodermal Half-Recovery Time at Age 15 Years as Possible Protective Factors Against Crime at Age 29 Years. , 1996 .

[4]  J. Lubar,et al.  Evaluation of the effectiveness of EEG neurofeedback training for ADHD in a clinical setting as measured by changes in T.O.V.A. scores, behavioral ratings, and WISC-R performance , 1995, Biofeedback and self-regulation.

[5]  P. H. Venables,et al.  CHAPTER 1 – Mechanisms, Instrumentation, Recording Techniques, and Quantification of Responses , 1973 .

[6]  P. Venables,et al.  Tonic heart rate level, social class and antisocial behaviour in adolescents , 1984, Biological Psychology.

[7]  Jeffrey A. Roth,et al.  Understanding and Preventing Violence , 1992 .

[8]  H. Quay,et al.  PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY AS PATHOLOGICAL STIMULATION-SEEKING. , 1965, The American journal of psychiatry.

[9]  T. Moffitt,et al.  IQ and delinquency: a direct test of the differential detection hypothesis. , 1988, Journal of abnormal psychology.

[10]  P. Venables,et al.  Electrodermal nonresponding, antisocial behavior, and schizoid tendencies in adolescents. , 1984, Psychophysiology.

[11]  Adrian Raine,et al.  The Psychopathology of Crime: Criminal Behavior as a Clinical Disorder , 1993 .

[12]  Jacob Cohen.  Statistical Power Analysis for the Behavioral Sciences , 1969, The SAGE Encyclopedia of Research Design.

[13]  P. Venables,et al.  Relationships between central and autonomic measures of arousal at age 15 years and criminality at age 24 years. , 1990, Archives of general psychiatry.

[14]  J. Lubar,et al.  Electroencephalographic biofeedback of SMR and beta for treatment of attention deficit disorders in a clinical setting , 1984, Biofeedback and self-regulation.

[15]  P. Venables,et al.  Autonomic orienting responses in 15-year-old male subjects and criminal behavior at age 24. , 1990, The American journal of psychiatry.

[16]  T. Moffitt.  Adolescence-limited and life-course-persistent antisocial behavior: a developmental taxonomy. , 1993, Psychological review.

[17]  J. Thayer,et al.  The continuing problem of false positives in repeated measures ANOVA in psychophysiology: a multivariate solution. , 1987, Psychophysiology.

[18]  P. Venables.  Electrodermal Indices as Markers for the Development of Schizophrenia , 1993 .