BABIE'S INTEREST IN FACES LINKED TO CALLOUS , EMOTIONAL TRAITS
Scientists at King's
College London, the University of Manchester, and the University of Liverpool
have found that an infant's preference for a person's face, rather than an
object, is associated with lower levels of callous and unemotional behaviors in
toddlerhood.
The study, published
in Biological Psychiatry, assessed if 213 five-week-old infants
spent longer tracking a person's face compared to an inanimate object -- in
this case a red ball. The researchers showed that greater tracking of the face
relative to the ball was linked to lower callous unemotional behaviors measured
using questionnaires when children were two and a half years old. The study
also showed that if a mother responds more sensitively to their baby during
playtime, then the child is less likely to display callous unemotional behavior
as a toddler.
Callous and
unemotional behaviors include a lack of guilt and empathy, reduced concern for
other's distress and difficulties with understanding emotions. In older
children and adults, callous unemotional traits have been associated with
reduced attention to important social features such as other people's faces and
eyes. This study is the first to examine whether such a relationship is present
from the first few weeks of life.
This is the latest
finding from the Medical Research Council (MRC) funded Wirral Child Health and
Development Study, an ongoing interdisciplinary investigation into the
interplay of social and biological factors in the emotional and cognitive
development of children. The children are currently being followed to test
whether face preference in infancy can predict callous unemotional behavior
through to middle childhood.
Dr Rachael Bedford, a
Sir Henry Wellcome Postdoctoral Fellow at the Biostatistics Department,
Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience, King's College London,
says: "Callous and unemotional behaviors in children are known to be
associated with an increased emotional burden on families as well as later
criminality and antisocial behavior. This study takes us a step further in
understanding the earliest origins of callous and unemotional behaviors. An
important next step will be to seek replication of the findings before working
towards developing early interventions."
Dr Jonathan Hill,
University of Manchester, says: "While our findings are interesting, we
don't yet know how stable callous unemotional behaviors are. Our follow-up work
will assess how these early indicators affect children in later life."
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