Social Information Processing Patterns as Mediators of the Interaction between

Genetic Factors and Life Experiences in the Development of Aggressive Behavior

Kenneth A. Dodge

Duke University

Draft chapter for M. Mikulincer & P.R. Shaver (Eds.), Understanding and reducing aggression,
violence, and their consequences. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
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Abstract

Social information processing patterns (e.g., hypervigilance to threat cues, hostile

attributional biases, self-defensive goals, accessibility to aggressive responses in memory,

aggressive decision-making) correlate robustly with individual differences in aggressive

behavior and predict growth in aggression across development. It is posited here that these

patterns also mediate the impact of genetic and environmental factors on aggressive behavior. A

general model is described that proposes that (a) processing patterns provide the proximal

mechanism through which aggressive behavior occurs; (b) these patterns correlate with neural

and psychophysiologic processes; (c) these patterns are acquired through genetic and

environmental processes, especially in interaction; and (d) acquired processing patterns account

for the effects of genetic and environmental factors in behavioral development and provide the

mechanism through which these factors exert their impact. Findings are presented from the

Child Development Project, an ongoing longitudinal study of 585 boys and girls followed from

age 4 through young adulthood.

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It is well established that social-cognitive processes correlate with aggressive behavioral

acts. For example, in response to an ambiguous provocation by another person, when a

respondent infers that the act was committed with hostile intent, the probability that the

respondent will react aggressively is high (about .76, Dodge, 1980); whereas when that same

respondent infers that the act was committed benignly, the probability of an aggressive

behavioral reaction is low (about .25, Dodge, 1980). Likewise, if the respondent evaluates that an

aggressive response will lead to desired outcomes, the probability of engaging in aggression is

high (Fontaine et al., 2008). Although the evidence is less clear that these social-cognitive

processes cause the aggressive behavioral response during the micro-seconds of interpersonal

interaction, the correlation has been found over and over.

It has also been found that individuals develop characteristic styles of processing social

information within specific social situations. These styles act as acquired personality

characteristics. They correlate significantly with and predict individual differences in aggressive

behavior in particular situations. In this chapter, this body of empirical evidence will be reviewed

briefly. This evidence will be integrated with recent discoveries in psychophysiology and neural

processes. Hypotheses will be advanced that social information processing (SIP) patterns arise

from interaction between genetic factors and life experiences and mediate the impact of these

factors on aggressive behavior. A general model will be proposed to guide future research.

Social Information Processing Mechanisms in Aggressive Behaviors

Models of the processing of information in response to social stimuli posit a sequence of

steps that lead to behavioral responding including aggression toward others (Crick & Dodge,

1994; Dodge, 2002; Huesmann, 1988). These steps are logically ordered and assumed to flow

temporally, although evidence for the sequential ordering is scant. Methods to assess an
 Social Information Processing 4

individual’s self report of her or his processing have been developed using hypothetical

situational vignettes as stimuli, in which the person is asked to contemplate a hypothetical

scenario in which a social event occurs and reply to questions about attribution and possible

responses (Dodge, 1980; Dodge, Pettit, McClaskey, & Brown, 1986). The stimuli have been

presented via video, cartoons, or orally.

The first several steps of processing describe the sensation and interpretation of cues, and

the latter steps describe behavioral response decision. The first step is attention and sensation of

the stimulus. Because the stimulus array is so large, selective attention to some cues over others

is inevitable. In a situation involving provocation by another, for example being pushed to the

ground, one child might attend to the provocation itself and the pain it causes for the self,

whereas a second child might attend to the teacher watching in the background and a third child

might attend to the peers who are laughing nearby. Attention to cues can obviously influence

downstream processing and ultimate behavior, such as when attention to the provocateur's look

of surprise and regret might mitigate a retaliatory response. Numerous factors affect selective

attention to hostile versus other cues, such as recent threat, fatigue, and stress (Dodge, 2002). A

pattern of habitual selective attention to hostile cues has been associated with chronic aggressive

behavior (Dodge, Pettit, McClasky, & Brown, 1986).

Closely following the sensation of cues is a mental representation of those cues, often

involving an interpretation of the other person's intention. As noted above, when a hostile intent

is inferred, aggressive behavior likely ensues, in contrast with an inference of a benign intention.

The process of mental representation occurs online in microseconds and may be updated across

time during a social interaction. It is not usually a conscious process, although it can become so

if prompted. The process undoubtedly involves neural activity that is conditioned by experience.
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Although precise locations are unclear, evidence suggests that mental representations of social

intent are associated with activity in the …. Inferences of threat and hostile intent have also been

found empirically to be correlated with heightened autonomic reactivity (Crozier et al., 2008).

Numerous studies have shown a robust pattern in which hostile attributional biases are

associated with aggressive behavior, especially reactive aggression (Dodge, 1980). A review by

Orobio de Castro et al. (2002) indicates that this pattern holds across age, demographic and

cultural groups, and contexts.

The third step is goal selection, in which the mentally represented stimulus is associated

with an emotional reaction and the narrowing of a goal. Again, the respondent is not usually

aware of this process but might reflect afterward on one's own cognitive process. Children who

experience anger and regularly select instrumental and self-defensive goals are likely to behave

aggressively, whereas children who select social goals are likely to behave nonaggressively

(Crick & Dodge, 1995).

Steps of response generation, response evaluation, and enactment constitute the response

decision phase of processing. Mental representation and goal selection trigger one or more

possible behavioral responses such as aggression, withdrawal, and social deflection. The trigger

from mental representation of hostile intent to aggressive response generation is a neural

association that is probably both "ready" at birth from evolution and conditioned from experience

and observation. One of the most well-replicated findings in this area is the empirical association

between the generation of aggressive responses to hypothetical social stimuli and actual chronic

aggressive behavior, beginning at about age 4 and continuing at least through adolescence

(reviewed by Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006).

Generation of an aggressive response does not lead inevitably to aggressive behavior.

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Processes of response evaluation and decision, called RED by Fontaine and Dodge (2006)

follow. During RED, the respondent immediately decides (nonconsciously, in microseconds) to

accept the generated response without any consideration of consequences or to consider multiple

domains of evaluative judgment, including: 1) response efficacy, the estimation of how likely the

respondent is to be successful if the considered response were to be carried out; 2) response

valuation, which is the assignment of value to the response in dimensions of its social and moral

qualities; 3) outcome expectancy, which is the estimation of the likelihood of various

consequences of a behavior; and 4) outcome valuation, in which the estimated outcome is given

value. Fontaine and Dodge (2006) hypothesized that different possible responses are compared

(response comparison) before the most appropriate response is selected (response selection).

Measurement of response decision during hypothetical social stimuli has yielded robust

correlations between all of these sub-processes and chronic aggressive behavior, especially

proactive aggression (Fontaine, Yang, Dodge, Bates, & Pettit, 2008; see review by Fontaine &

Dodge, 2006).

Social Information Processing Patterns as Predictors of Individual Differences in

Aggressive Behavior

Although these processing patterns have been empirically correlated with individual

differences in aggressive behavior, these findings often suffer two pitfalls. First, because the

measurement of processing is typically based on the individual's self-report, this report is one's

self-observation of cognitive processing and not processing itself, which occurs at the neural

level and nonconsciously. Even self-reports that are collected "online" are immediate self-

observations. Recent evidence suggests that individuals actually begin to respond with neural

activity in micro-seconds prior to self-awareness of responding. The second problem is that the
 Social Information Processing 7

empirical correlation between patterns of processing and patterns of behavior might reflect an

opposite causal direction than proposed in the model or be attributed to an unmeasured third

variable. Two kinds of evidence have been mounted to test the hypothesis that chronic patterns

of processing increment the prediction of aggressive behavior.

Controlling for Prior Aggression

The first evidence comes from prospective studies in which early levels of aggressive

conduct problems are controlled statistically. In the Child Development Project of a community

sample of 585 boys and girls followed for 20 years, we assessed both aggressive behavior and

processing patterns recurrently. During the early elementary school years, children develop

patterns of processing social information that become stable when measured annually for four

years, as assessed by cross-time internal consistency coefficients of .70 to .79 (Dodge, Pettit,

Bates, & Valente, 1995). These patterns function as acquired personality characteristics. During

this period, the continuity in aggressive behavior also becomes strong. However, aggressive

behavior measured by teacher assessments at age 5 was found to predict patterns of social

information processing in kindergarten through grade 3, which, in turn, predicted aggressive

behavior at age 10, and incremented the prediction of aggressive behavior even when early levels

of aggression were statistically controlled (Dodge et al., 2003).

We also found prediction of adolescent conduct problems from kindergarten processing

patterns. Here, we scored children as displaying problems in social information processing at the

early steps (hypervigilance and hostile attributional biases) or later steps (response generation or

evaluation) or both or neither steps. We found that controlling for kindergarten externalizing

problems as assessed by both mothers and teachers, the four groups differed in mother- and

teacher-rated externalizing behavior problems at the end of grade 11 (Lansford et al., 2006).
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Furthermore, the effect was synergistic, in that the group of children with kindergarten problems

at both stages of processing were especially likely to show conduct problems in high school.

The prediction was even stronger from processing patterns in grade 8. Controlling for

conduct problems during grade 8 and earlier, the four groups of children as assessed by

processing patterns during grade 8 differed in mother- and teacher-rated conduct problems in

grade 11. Again, a synergistic interaction effect was found, with the group displaying the highest

levels of conduct problem was the one with problems at both early and later stages of processing.

Reciprocal influences. The relation between processing patterns and aggressive behavior

is hypothesized to be reciprocal. We have also found evidence for an iterative, reciprocal relation

between processing patterns and aggression (Fontaine et al., 2008). That is, aggressive behavior

at age 14 predicted processing patterns the next year, which, in turn, predicted growth in

aggression the following year, even controlling for prior aggression. Likewise, processing

patterns in one year predicted aggression in the following year, which altered processing patterns

in the subsequent year. Across adolescence, this reciprocal effect iterates.

Intervention as Experimental Evidence

The second kind of evidence comes from intervention experiments in which explicit

attempts to alter processing patterns are manipulated by random assignment to observe the

impact on aggressive behavior. Graham and Hudley (1993) provide evidence. They developed a

brief intervention to help young African American boys process information in more benevolent

ways that would lessen a hostile attributional bias. Indeed, they found that random assignment to

this intervention did lead to lower scores on assessments of hostile attributional bias, and this

impact was found to mediate a change in aggressive behavior patterns. Guerra and Slaby (1990)

also randomly assigned aggressive adolescents to intervention or not. Their intervention involved
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multiple components of processing. They also found that random assignment to the intervention

condition was associated with improvements in processing patterns and aggressive behavior

outcomes.

Situation and Relationship Specificity

A pivotal feature of models of social information processing is the importance of

situation specificity in the link between processing patterns and behavior. That is, it is asserted

that processing patterns within a type of situation, such as a provocation or initiation of entry into

a peer group or a romantic relationship conflict or a conflict with a co-worker, will predict

behavior within that type of situation more strongly than behavior in other situations.

Evidence in support of this hypothesis was reported for young children by Dodge, Pettit,

Bates, McClaskey, & Brown (1986). They assessed processing patterns in peer provocation

situations and peer group entry situations, and then they placed children in a laboratory bsetting

and exposed them to a provocation by a confederate peer and an entry situation in which they

were asked to initiate entry into a strange peer group. They found that processing patterns

predicted behavior, and the predictions were stronger within situations than across situations.

More recently, we found evidence with CDP participants in young adulthood. Two kinds

of situations are important in young adulthood, defined by relationships. The establishment of

successful romantic relationships is a key developmental task of early adulthood (Collins & van

Dulmen, 2006; Conger, Cui, Bryant, & Elder , 2000; Furman, 2002). Violence is unfortunately

common in these relationships, as indicated by surveys which indicate that 20 to 50 percent of

intimate relationships during adulthood involve violence toward a partner (Magdol et al., 1997;

Silverman, Raj, Mucci, & Hathaway, 2001). Likewise, relationships with adult peers are

essential to work and community success (Arnett, 2006). Although some individuals display
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violence across different relationships, many adults behave violently only in romantic

relationships (Archer, 2000; Holtzworth-Munroe & Stuart, 1994; Straus, 1999). Some research

has shown that peer violence and partner violence may have distinguishable antecedents

(Brendgen, Vitaro, Tremblay, & Lavoie, 2001).

We were able to interview 85 percent of the original sample at age 22 and follow them

through age 24. We assessed processing patterns in situations involving conflict with a romantic

partner (e.g., “You are at a gathering with a group of friends and your girl/boyfriend and learn

that your girl/boyfriend and one of the people at the gathering used to be a couple; they spend

most of the night talking with each other.”) and conflict with a coworker or peer (e.g., “You tell a

friend something personal and ask your friend not to discuss it with anyone else. However, a

couple of weeks later, you find out that a lot of people know about it.”).

We (Pettit et al., 2009) found evidence for the prediction of violent behavior in each of

these types of relationships, as well as evidence of relationship specificity. Processing patterns in

a romantic relationship predicted violent behavior in actual romantic relationships two years

later, as reported by both the self and the romantic partner. Also, processing patterns within the

peer relationship predicted violent behavior toward peers two years later. Furthermore, the

predictions were stronger within relationships than across relationships.

Neural and Psychophysiological Processes and Social Information Processing

A misconception about information processing is that it occurs independently from

biological processes in real time. In fact, growing evidence identifies the corresponding

psychophysiological and neural processes that co-occur with information processing. Most

likely, these processes occur in real time outside the awareness of the individual, and measures

of information processing represent the individual's post-behavioral reflection of her or his

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actions. This fact would render the measures of information processing as less precise and more

subject to self-presentation and other biases.

Psychophysiologic Processes

Ortiz and Raine (2004) have compiled evidence to indicate that resting heart rate is

inversely related to individual differences in aggressive behavior, especially proactive and life-

persistent aggression but not situational or adolescence-limited aggression (Moffit & Caspi,

2001). Raine, Venables, and Merdnick (1997) found that resting heart rate at age 3 predicted

aggressive behavior 8 years later at age 11. Raine (2002) hypothesized that prefrontal cortex

deficits in volume and function may be responsible for low autonomic activity as well as

aggressive behavior.

However, during the processing of social cues, the autonomic nervous system reacts with

rapid changes in heart rate (Crozier, et al., 2008). While the individual is attending to cues, heart

rate decreases. When a provocation occurs, heart rate increases and then slowly returns to base

line when the threat dissipates. Lorber (2004) summarized evidence from numerous studies to

indicate that aggressive children display higher heart rate reactivity to provocation cues than do

nonaggressive children. Furthermore, Crozier et al. (2008) found that high heart rate reactivity to

provocation cues is correlated with several stages of social information processing. Furthermore,

processing responses mediate the impact of heart rate changes on aggressive behavior.

Thus, two separate psychophysiologic processes may relate to aggressive behavior. Both

low resting heart rate and high heart rate reactivity in response to threatening cues appear to

predict aggressive behavior. These processes may have their antecedents in both life events and

heritable biological processes, and their impact on aggressive behavior may be mediated by the

manner in which the individual processes social information in response to threat.

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Neural processes

Neuroimaging studies suggest that regions of the prefrontal cortex (e.g., the dorsolateral

prefrontal cortex, DLPFC, and ventral prefrontal cortex, VPFC) and the limbic system (e.g., the

amygdala) are activated during information processing in response to interpersonal provocations,

such as unfair allocation of resources by a peer (Meyer-Lindenberg et al., 2006; Sanfey, Rilling,

Aronson, Nystrom, & Cohern, 2003; Tabibnia, Satpute, & Lieberman, 2008). Meyer-Lindenberg

et al. (2006) found significant activation of the amygdala in response to experimental

presentation of stimuli similar to those used to assess social information processing, such as

presentation of angry and fearful faces and aversively valenced cues. Presentation of threatening

faces (Pezawaz et al., 2005), the perception of anger in others, and the experience of anger in

oneself (Murphy, Nimmo-Smith, & Lawrence, 2003) all reliably activate the amygdala. The

prefrontal cortex is activated during executive function tasks involved in processing information,

such as planning, inhibitory control, and decision making (Raine, Buchsbaum, & LaCasse,

1997). Raine (2008) stated that "the prefrontal cortex acts as an 'emergency brake' on runaway

emotions generated by limbic structures" (p. 324).

The activation of these brain regions, in turn, appears to be mediated by the release of

neurotransmitters. Monoamina oxidase-A (MAO-A) appears to correlate with amygdala volume

and probably its activation (Meyer-Lindenberg et al., 2006). Release of 5-HT in the prefrontal

cortex is thought to regulate an individual's impulsive desire to retaliate aggressively to

perceived hostile treatment (Evers et al., 2006), although this evidence was only correlational

until recently. Crockett, Clark, Tabibnia, Lieberman, and Robbins (2008) experimentally

manipulated serotonin levels in each of 20 human subjects through an acute tryptophan depletion

procedure that temporarily lowered 5-HT levels. In contrast with a placebo, when subjects had
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lower serotonin levels they responded to an unfair treatment by a peer with greater retaliatory

behavior.

Thus, in the same way that social information processing operations appear to involve

multiple relatively independent steps, functional brain imaging studies have identified multiple

brain regions that are implicated in different aspects of responding to social stimuli.

Antecedents of Social Information Processing Patterns and Neural Processes

Next, we turn attention to the antecedents of processing patterns and neural processes that

mediate aggressive behavior. Given the empirical findings of both general prediction and

situation-specific prediction, we hypothesize that some antecedent factors will apply generally

and some will apply to specific domains, situations, or relationships.

Child Maltreatment

The experience of abuse by one’s parent during the first five years of life is a devastating

life experience that has been hypothesized to alter one's central working models of how human

relationships operate. Children develop basic trust through interaction with caring adults, and a

violation of that trust through extreme or ongoing maltreatment is hypothesized to lead to

schemas, scripts, knowledge structures, and working models that others will act maliciously.

Thus, the child develops hypervigilant and selective attentional patterns, becomes quick to

attribute hostile motives to others, adopts self-defensive rather than social goals, develops a

repertoire of self-defensive behavioral responses, and comes to evaluate self-protective behaviors

as effective and desirable. Given the centrality of these working models, it is hypothesize that

this experience will lead to long-term and pervasive patterns of processing information across a

range of social situations and relationships.

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The evidence in favor of this hypothesis comes from several laboratories, including

Pollack's work on attention patterns in maltreated children and findings from the CDP study.

Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (1990) and Weiss et al. (1992) reported that maltreatment in the first

five years of life predicted processing patterns at school entry that included hypervigilance,

hostile attributional biases, aggressive response generation, and favorable evaluation of

aggressive behaviors. In turn, these patterns predicted aggressive behavior and mediated the

impact of maltreatment on aggression. Dodge et al. (2003) extended the aggressive outcomes

through adolescence and found a similar pattern of prediction and mediation. Dodge et al. (2009,

unpublished) found that 30.4% of the maltreated children had an official court record of arrest by

age 24, in contrast with 16.5% of the non-maltreated children.

Lansford et al. (2007) found that the outcomes that accrue from early-life maltreatment

are very broad and include not only aggressive behaviors but also early pregnancy, anxiety,

depressive symptoms, school drop out, substance-use problems, and arrests for a variety of

crimes. The processing patterns that were assessed in early elementary school mediated some but

not all of these outcomes, perhaps because the stimuli that were used to assess processing

patterns were restricted to only selected domains. It is plausible that maltreatment alters

processing in multiple domains, which then mediate behavior outcomes. More comprehensive

assessment of processing patterns would be necessary to test this hypothesis.

Peer Social Rejection

Other life experiences appear to have effects that are more circumscribed. During

elementary school in American culture, chronic peer social rejection is a painful experience. We

hypothesized, and found empirically, that it would exacerbate children's aggressive behavior

problems, beyond whatever aggressive behavior led to the peer response of rejection (Dodge et
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al., 2003). That is, rejection during kindergarten through grade 2 predicted aggressive behavior

in grade 4 even controlling for early aggressive behavior. Furthermore, patterns of social

information processing about peer events partially mediated the growth in aggressive behavior

during this period.

More recently, we have found that the impact of early peer rejection lasts through young

adulthood (Pettit et al., 2009). Recall the CDP findings presented earlier about the significant

relation between processing patterns in peer relationships at age 22 and aggressive behavior

toward peers at age 24. It turns out that the experience of peer rejection in kindergarten

significantly predicts these processing patterns at age 22, which, in turn, mediate the impact of

kindergarten peer rejection on aggressive behavior toward peers in young adulthood.

In order to describe these relations in person-centered terms, we dichotomized

participants into those who had not been rejected by peers in elementary school versus those who

had been peer-rejected; those who displayed problematic processing about peer relationships at

age 22 versus those who displayed non-problematic processing; and those who displayed no

violence toward adult peers versus those who displayed violence. Among the group that was not

rejected by peers and who display non-problematic processing about peers the probability of

becoming violent toward a peer is relatively low (.43), whereas among rejected children who

display problematic processing, the probability is high (.70). In between are non-rejected

children who display problematic processing (.47) and rejected children who do not display

problematic processing (.51).

Exposure to Romantic Relationship Violence

The antecedents of romantic relationship violence may differ from those for peer-directed

violence. Exposure to parents' domestic violence in early life predicts later violence in romantic
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relationships (Nay et al., 2009), but disentangling the effect of this particular exposure from

other family violence may prove difficult. We explored the impact of victimization during

adolescent romantic relationships on young adult violent behavior toward a romantic partner.

We found that being victimized violently during an adolescent romantic relationship did

indeed predict violent behavior toward a romantic partner in young adulthood. Also, this

adolescent experience predicted problematic processing patterns in romantic relationships, which

partially mediated the impact of victimization on later violent behavior toward a romantic

partner. Among non-victims who display non-problematic processing, the probability of later

becoming violent toward a romantic partner is low (.288), whereas among victims who display

problematic processing, the probability is high (.62). In between are non-victims who display

problematic processing (.42) and non-victims who do not display problematic processing (.43).

Because of the unique paths from problematic processing within a relationship type to

violence in that relationship, it follows that mediation by processing patterns was fund only

within relationship types and not across relationship types.

Genetic Factors

Individual differences in genetic variation in the serotonin transporter 5-HT have been

associated with increased amygdala activation (Pezawaz et al., 2005) and prefrontal cortex

functions (Raine, 2008), as assessed through functional magnetic resonance imaging. Also, a

common genetic variation in the x-linked MAO-A has been correlated with amygdala volume

and activation in response to threatening stimuli (Meyer-Lindenberg et al., 2006). That is,

individuals, especially males, with a polymorphism in the gene MAO-A demonstrate greater

amygdala activation following presentation of threatening faces and aversive emotional

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situations. It follows, then, that variation in these genes would likely correlate with individual

differences in processing patterns in response to threatening social situations.

Environmental and Genetic Factors in Aggressive Behavior

A comprehensive model of the development of chronic aggressive behavior must account

for both genetic and life experience factors. The major environmental factors in early life have

been reviewed elsewhere to include the kinds of personally threatening experiences addressed

above, such as early physical maltreatment, peer social rejection, and victimization, as well as

exposure to stressful contexts such as poverty and disadvantage (Dodge, Coie, & Lynam, 2006;

Dodge & Pettit, 2003). The latter factors are likely to operate through their impact on life

experiences such as parenting quality and success in life tasks of education (Dodge, Pettit, &

Bates, 1993). Major environmental variables in mid-childhood and adolescence involve exposure

to deviant peers who influence high-risk youth to engage in aggressive behavior and parental

failure to supervise and monitor youths' activities, thus enhancing their exposure (Dodge, Coie,

& Lynam, 2006).

Environmental variables that have an enduring effect are likely to be those that alter brain

processes that include neural, cognitive, and psychophysiological operations. Support has been

growing that life stressors and early trauma have enduring effects on both prefrontal cortex and

amygdala processes measured through functional MRI. Liston, McEwan, and Casey (2009)

reported that the natural experiment of a potent stressor (an upcoming academic examination)

had observable effects on decreasing dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity during laboratory

tasks. Ganzel, Casey, Glover, Voss, and Temple (2007) found that individuals who had been

exposed to major trauma during the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center
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displayed heightened amygdala activation when presented with emotionally aversive and fearful

faces.

The heritability of criminal and aggressive behavior patterns has been known for some

while, although adoption studies have identified a heritability-by-environment interaction effect.

Cloninger et al. (1982) found that under conditions of low heritable risk (i.e., having a biological

parent who was not a criminal), the impact of the environment (i.e., having an adoptive parent

who was or was not a criminal), on later criminality was rather small (rate of .03 for non-

criminal adoptive parents vs. .07 for criminal adoptive parents). However, under conditions of

high heritable risk, the impact of the environment was strong (.12 for non-criminal adoptive

parents vs. .40 for criminal adoptive parents). Jaffee et al. (2004) studied monozygotic and

dizygotic twins from the British E-Risk study and identified four rank-ordered groups of

increasing heritable risk, with the lowest heritable-risk group being children whose monozygotic

twin is not conduct disordered (CD), the next lowest group being children whose dizygotic twin

is not CD, the next highest group being children whose dizygotic twin is CD, and the highest

group being children whose monozygotic twin is CD. The experience of child physical

maltreatment was determined by clinical interview with the mother, following procedures by

Dodge, Bates, and Pettit (1990). Among the group at lowest heritable risk, the experience of

physical maltreatment had little effect on conduct disorder outcomes (for non-maltreated, rate =

.02; for maltreated, rate = .04). Among the next highest level of heritable risk, the effect of

maltreatment was small (.06 vs. .13). Among the next highest level, the effect of maltreatment

grew larger (.19 vs. .37). Finally, among the highest level, the effect of maltreatment was largest

(.46 vs. .70).

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The search for specific genetic variables that predict aggressive behavior has been

plagued both by political issues and empirical discoveries that have failed to replicate, perhaps

because of atheoretical approaches that capitalize on chance (Kim-Cohen et al., 2006). Several

theorists argue that genetic factors are likely to operate indirectly, on their effects on neurally and

biologically mediated dispositions to act impulsively without planning, without empathy, or

without consideration of extenuating circumstances (Caspi et al., 2002). These dispositions have

been called executive functions (Morgan & Lillienfeld, 2000, and they likely affect processing

responses (or are measured as processing responses) during social interactions. For example, a

deficit in considering another's affect would lead to inaccurate interpretations of stimulus events,

and impulsivity would lead to premature decision-making that fails to consider long-term

consequences.

Following this hypothesis, the genetic polymorphisms that have been most frequently

correlated with aggressive behavior patterns are those that relate to neurotransmitter functions,

especially dopamine (Dick et al., 2006; Moffitt et al., 2008)]. Three genes will be discussed here.

First, monoamine oxidase A (MAOA) is an enzyme that selectively metabolizes serotonin,

norepinephrine, and dopamine (Shih, Chen, & Ridd, 1999), which are involved in brain actions

associated with stress regulation (Charney, 2004) and biological sensitivity to adverse social

contexts (Boyce & Ellis, 2005). A polymorphism in the X-chromosome-linked gene that encodes

MAOA has been identified in about one third of all human males, suggesting that it might have

adaptive value across evolution but is still non-normative. In rodents, this polymorphism has

been correlated with both aggressive behavior and lower brain serotonin and norepinephrine

(Cases et al., 1995). In humans, a modest main effect of a polymorphism in MAOA on

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aggressive behavior has been found (Brunner et al., 1993) but other studies have found

contradictory patterns (Kim-Cohen et al., 2006).

The more likely robust pattern is a gene-by-environment interaction effect. Eisenberger,

Way, Taylor, Welch, and Lieberman (2007) found that individuals with the low-expression allele

form of MAOA demonstrated heightened dorsal anterior cingulated cortex activity, but only in

response to an environmental stressor of peer social rejection and not to peer inclusion. They

suggested that MAOA may dispose individuals to become “hypersensitive” to interpersonal

rejection.

If the MAOA enzyme is involved in regulating stress, especially trauma and threat, then

it might play a role in moderating the impact of early physical maltreatment on the development

of aggressive behavior. Caspi et al. (2002) found this interaction effect in the Dunedin

longitudinal sample, and Kim-Cohen et al. (2006) replicated the pattern in the British E-Risk

study. In the CDP, we have very recently replicated this interaction effect with criminal arrest as

the outcome (Edwards, Dick, Dodge, Pettit, Bates, & Lansford, 2009). Among children without

the MAOA polymorphism, those who had been maltreated did not differ from those who had not

been maltreated in the proportion who had been arrested by age 22 (.28 vs. .25), whereas among

children with the polymorphism, those who had been maltreated had a much higher probability

of criminal arrest by age 22 than those who not been maltreated (.71 vs. .26).

A second gene that has been implicated in a variety of externalizing and addiction

disorders is the gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) A receptor, alpha 2, also known as GABRA2

(Dick et al., 2006). GABA is the major inhibitory neurotransmitter in the mammalian brain. A

polymorphism in GABRA2 has been associated with conduct disorder, but the more powerful

pattern again is a gene-by-environment interaction effect, in which high parental supervision

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during early adolescence has been found to buffer children from the adverse effect of the

GABRA2 polymorphism (Dick et al., 2008). Among children whose parents who engaged in low

rates of supervision, the likelihood of being in a persistently-high trajectory of conduct problems

across adolescence increases dramatically with the number of copies of the risk allele of GABRA2,

from .07 to .19 to .28 for 0, 1, or 2 copies, respectively, whereas among children whose parents

engaged in high rates of supervision, the likelihood of being in the persistently high trajectory of

conduct problems increases modestly from .10 to .12 to .126 for 0, 1, or 2 copies, respectively.

A third gene that has been found to correlate with aggressive behavior is 5-HT. Recall

that polymorphisms in 5-HT have been associated with impaired limbic structure and increased

amygdala function. Waldman (2008) recently took this work a step further by finding a

significant relation between a polymorphism in 5-HT and individual differences in reactive but

not proactive aggressive behavior. Even more striking was that, using the social information

processing instruments described above, he found a significant association between 5-HT and

hostile attributional biases. Finally, the effect of 5-HT on reactive aggression was mediated by

hostile attributional biases. This work represents the first known attempt to identify molecular

genetic bases for social information processing patterns.

Thus, a comprehensive model of the development of chronic aggressive behavior must

take into account environmental main effects, gene main effects, and gene-by-environment

interaction effects. Furthermore, the environmental variables are likely to include both broad

factors that influence aggression across many situations as well as situational factors that

influence aggression within situations.

A Proposed Model of Social Information Processing Mechanisms in Gene-by-Environment

Interaction Effects
 Social Information Processing 22

Integration of the distal genetic and environmental factors with social information

processing proximal mechanisms requires a final leap of theorizing. The model proposed here

builds on models by van Goozen, Fairchild, and Harold (2008) and Raine (2008) but is unique in

positing that within-situation processing patterns mediate the effects of genes, environments, and

their interactions. The overall model is depicted in Figure 1 which posits that specific (albeit

unidentified, as of yet) genes and early environment of threat, trauma, and adversity pose risks

for the long-term development of chronically violent behavior. These distal factors operate as

main effects and in interaction with each other. Throughout development, situational

environments also lead to the development of situation-specific processing patterns that mediate

aggressive behavior within those situations. When these situations present themselves, they pose

proximal risk for violent behavior within those situations.

These distal and proximal risk factors are mediated by brain processes that operate in

response to proximal situational stimuli. Three aspects of functioning are hypothesized to co-

occur during responding: neural activity in synapses (most likely involving neurotransmitters

such as dopamine), social information processing as described earlier, and psychophysiological

activity through the autonomic nervous system. These brain processes, in turn, mediate

aggressive behavioral responses within these situations.

A Research Agenda

This model poses numerous research studies that have yet to be completed. In order to

understand the intricate interactions between specific genes and specific environments, existing

large-sample longitudinal studies need to be mined to test gene-environment hypotheses. Sub-

groups of individuals who fit profiles of gene-environmental risk need to be exposed to

 Social Information Processing 23

situational stimuli in order to elicit processing responses while being observed through functional

magnetic resonance imaging and psychophysiological recording.

The studies posed here are likely to produce both support and disconfirmation of different

the proposed model, hopefully with iterative refinement of the model over time. Although the

empirical evidence has yielded promising results, it is highly unlikely that any single gene or

group of genes, even in interaction with environmental histories, could account for much of the

variance in aggressive behavior.

The implications of these empirical findings and model for preventive intervention design

present yet another research agenda. Environmental engineering in light of personalized genetic

information has the exciting but unrealized potential for preventing the development of chronic

violence. So, too, environments and training interventions that alter social information

processing patterns offer the hope of secondary prevention among individuals at high risk due to

gene-environment risk profiles.

 Social Information Processing 24

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Figure Captions

Figure 1. A proposed model of genetic, environmental, and processing mechanisms in the

development of aggressive behavior.

 Social Information Processing 33

Situational
Stimulus

Genes

Neural
Activity

Social
Information
Processing Violence
Processing

Psychophysio-
logical
Early Situational Activity
Environment Environment