Early adulthood has long been recognized as a potential turning point for the development of antisocial behavior, due to changes in social contexts and ongoing psychological and neurobiological... Show moreEarly adulthood has long been recognized as a potential turning point for the development of antisocial behavior, due to changes in social contexts and ongoing psychological and neurobiological maturation. However, it remains unclear how different developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior, their neural underpinnings, and individual differences in psychopathic traits may help explain the distinct developmental outcomes of individuals who persist in or desist from antisocial behavior in early adulthood -such as how they respond to others in social contexts. Therefore, in the current study, young adults (aged 18-30, 68% male) with a persistent or desistant antisocial trajectory (N = 54), as well as healthy controls (N = 39), completed the Social Network Aggression Task, during which they received positive, neutral, or negative feedback on a personal profile and got the opportunity to retaliate by blasting a loud noise. On a behavioral level, results indicated that in all groups, negative peer feedback evoked higher retaliatory aggression, compared to positive and neutral feedback. On a neural level, when receiving social feedback, individuals with persistent or desistent trajectories showed both similar and dissociable patterns of neural activity; desisting and persisting trajectory groups showed higher activity in the Insula, and the desisting trajectory group showed higher activity in dlPFC. Finally, when participants retaliated, they showed increased dlPFC and ACC activity following positive relative to neutral and negative feedback, where ACC activity correlated most strongly with inhibition of retaliatory responses in the desisting trajectory group. Together, these findings provide novel insights in dissociable patterns of brain activity that may increase our understanding of the mechanisms underlying different developmental trajectories of antisocial behavior. Show less
Groep, I.H. van de; Bos, M.G.N.; Jansen, L.M.C.; Achterberg, M.; Popma, A.; Crone, E.A.M. 2021
Prior research has implicated the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in processing evaluations from the perspective of self (self-traits) and evaluations from others (peer feedback),... Show morePrior research has implicated the medial and lateral prefrontal cortex (PFC) in processing evaluations from the perspective of self (self-traits) and evaluations from others (peer feedback), suggesting that these areas form a neural substrate that serves an intertwined function in monitoring self in relation to others. To test this possibility, we examined neural activation overlap in medial and lateral PFC after processing self- and other-informed evaluations. Young adults (age range 18-30-yrs, n = 40) performed two fMRI tasks. The self-concept task involved rating whether positive and negative traits described themselves. The Social Network Aggression Task involved processing positive, neutral or negative feedback from others, with the possibility to retaliate by blasting a loud noise following feedback. The results show that rating positive self traits and receiving positive peer feedback was associated with increased activity in an overlapping region in medial PFC. There were no significant correlations on a behavioral level and medial PFC activity for self-versus-other evaluations. The study further replicated the finding from previous research showing that higher activity in dorsolateral PFC (dlPFC) when receiving negative social feedback was associated with reduced noise blast aggression. Finally, during retaliatory responses after receiving positive feedback, participants showed increased activity in the dlPFC. Together these findings suggest that medial PFC is more strongly involved in protecting positive self-views from both internal (self traits) and external (peer feedback) points of view, whereas dlPFC is more strongly involved in regulating retaliatory responses following social rejection, and actively inhibiting aggressive behavior after receiving positive peer feedback. Show less
Westhoff, B.; Koele, I.J.; Groep, I.H. van de 2020
When you think about learning, you probably think about things you are taught at school. But have you ever realized you use a different type of learning as well, on a daily basis? This type of... Show moreWhen you think about learning, you probably think about things you are taught at school. But have you ever realized you use a different type of learning as well, on a daily basis? This type of learning is called social learning, and it has to do with the people around you. That is, you learn from and about others by watching and interacting with them. For example, seeing someone else’s mistakes may teach you to avoid falling into the same trap. Although social learning happens very often, you may not yet know much about it. However, social learning is very important because it helps us to learn more efficiently and to determine how best to behave around others. In this article, we introduce two different types of social learning, and explain how your brain plays an important role. Show less
Hout, M.A. van den; Dis, E.A.M. van; Woudenberg, C. van; Groep, I.H. van de 2017
Van den Hout and Kindt (2003a) developed a Virtual Gas Stove Checking paradigm. They demonstrated that repeated checking resulted in lower confidence and reduced the vividness and detail of... Show moreVan den Hout and Kindt (2003a) developed a Virtual Gas Stove Checking paradigm. They demonstrated that repeated checking resulted in lower confidence and reduced the vividness and detail of recollections. Over the past decades, many experiments have used (an adaptation of) this experimental paradigm to study phenomena related to obsessive compulsive disorders (OCD). The first aim of the present study was to conduct a meta-analysis of experiments (k = 28; N = 1662) on the repeated checking paradigm. Repeated checking was found to have large effects on decreases in memory confidence, vividness and detail. Unexpectedly, repeated checking also produced small reductions in memory accuracy. The second aim of the present study was to develop an improved version of the checking paradigm in which 1) stimuli presentations were fully balanced; and 2) the checking latency was comparable across stimuli in order to 3) assess actual checking behavior. The improved version (Virtual checking task 2.0) replicated earlier findings on meta-memory. Show less
