When Emotions Run High: Using Interactive Virtual Reality to Understand Social Information Processing in Boys with Aggressive Behavior Problems

Abstract

To understand children’s aggressive behaviors, we need to study their thoughts and actions in situations that actually evoke aggressive behaviors. To this end, we first developed an interactive Virtual Reality classroom in which children engaged in emotionally engaging, realistic interactions with virtual peers and examined this as a new assessment for children’s social information processing. Second, we proposed a new theoretical social information processing model to better explain how children’s emotions and cognitions contribute to aggressive behaviors.

This dissertation showed that children’s social information processing in interactive VR better predicted their aggressive behavior in real life than standard assessment methods. Moreover, we found that children differ in the unique social information processing patterns underlying their aggressive behavior, providing new opportunities to more effectively tailor cognitive-behavioral interventions to individual children. Last, we proposed a new theoretical social information processing model that discerns a reflective, calm processing mode leading up to deliberately selected aggressive behavior from a newly proposed automatic, emotional processing mode contributing to impulsive aggression.