Why do you look so angry?: Understanding and changing social cognition in boys with disruptive behavior problems

Abstract

Common referrals in mental health care are boys between 8 and 12 years with aggression problems. To treat these problems, often CBM and/or parent training is used, however these show only modest results. Therefore, more research on this topic is important. In the first part of this dissertation different explanatory factors for aggression are examined. For every child, multiple explanatory factors are at work to produce aggression. The role of narcissism and self-esteem was further examined in this dissertation. Higher scores on narcissism were related to higher scores on aggression, according to parents and children themselves. For teachers, this link was not found. Therefore, this link seems context-dependent. There has been an ongoing debate about whether level of self-esteem is linked to aggression. In our research, no link has been found between self-esteem and aggression. Therefore, we suggest to consider narcissism as an explanatory factor in diagnostics, and integrate this in treatment by focusing on coping with frustration and criticism instead of heightening self-esteem. In the second part of this dissertation we examined an innovative, short intervention. The goal of this intervention was to change social perception, which is often hostile in these boys, and can be seen as an underlying factor of aggression. There was an effect of the training: Boys learned to interpret facial expressions as less hostile. However, this did not lead to changes in aggressive behavior. We suggest to further examine this training, for example by combining it with other forms of treatment, before this is implemented in clinical practice.