Investigating Emotional Correlates of Cooperative Behavioral Differences in Maltreated and Non-Maltreated Youth

Maltreated youth often show a wide range of peer problems, which mainly arise through specific social behaviors such as aggression, social withdrawal, and altered cooperation (Anthonysamy et al., 2007). With regard to cooperative behavior as one of the core features of human ontogeny (Tomasello, 2009), recent findings indicate that maltreated youth elicit a hyper-cooperative strategy when entering a peer group, potentially out of fear of hostile interactions (Keil et al., 2019). Yet, despite the inextricable link between social behavior and emotions (e.g. Halberstadt et al., 2001), we know little to nothing about the actual emotions that accompany the behavioral differences that maltreated and non-maltreated youth show in such real-time interactions. A deeper understanding of this interplay may add a crucial dimension to prior work and fruitfully inform future interventions. This study aims to analyze autonomic facial emotional reactions of children and adolescents with and without maltreatment experiences in response to virtual peer interactions with varying levels of cooperativeness (i.e., cooperative, selfish and divergent co-players) and their relationship with cooperative behavior. Based on prior findings (Keil et al., 2017, 2019) and a meta-analysis (Gruhn & Compas, 2020) we expect differences in emotional arousal between conditions and experimental groups. Moreover, we hypothesize differences in negative emotional valence between conditions and experimental groups. Finally, we expect higher levels of fear in maltreated youth to predict higher levels of cooperative behavior across all conditions. We will collect data of up to N=400 participants aged 11-23 years partaking in an ongoing prospective longitudinal large-scale study investigating the effects of childhood maltreatment on the psychosocial development of children and adolescents. Participants play a computerized Public Goods Game (the Pizzagame, Keil et al., 2017) ostensibly with three pairs of same-age, same-sex co-players, who are in fact pre-programmed computer dummies following cooperatives, selfish or divergent strategies. Autonomic facial emotional reactions are recorded via webcam during the game and will be analyzed using the Noldus FaceReader software. Furthermore, maltreatment experiences are assessed by applying the semi-structured Maternal Maltreatment Classification Interview (MMCI; Cicchetti et al., 2003) to caregivers and subsequent coding of information using the Maltreatment Classification System (MCS; Barnett et al., 1993). We will analyze the data in three steps. First, we will describe mean levels of emotional arousal and valence as well as basic emotions (i.e., anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness, surprise) in each condition of the Pizzagame. Second, we will run multiple repeated-measures ANCOVAs comparing mean scores of emotional arousal and valence between conditions and experimental groups controlling for age and gender. Third, we will regress the mean cooperative behavior score across conditions on the mean score of fear expression in interaction with maltreatment status adjusted for age and gender. Finally, we will discuss results with regard to their theoretical implications and future research directions.