Comparison of Social Information Processing Based on Crick & Dodge's Social Cognitive Model in Children with and without Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder

Social maladjustment, including aggression, is a prominent problem in childhood and later stages of life. A social- information processing model of Crick and Dodge developed to explain children’s aggression. Accordingly, children engage in the following six mental stages before behaving properly when they face a social situation:1- Encoding of external and internal cues, 2- interpretation and mental representation of those cues, 3- clarification or selection of a goal, 4- response access or construction, 5- response decision, and 6- behavioral enactment. During Steps 1 and 2, encoding and interpretation of social cues, it is hypothesized that children selectively attend to particular situational and internal cues, encode those cues, and then interpret them, During Step 3, after interpreting the situation, it is proposed that children select a goal or desired outcome for the situation or continue with a preexisting goal, Next, at Step 4, it is hypothesized that children access from memory possible responses to the situation, or, if the situation is novel, they may construct new behaviors in response to immediate social cues, At Step 5, it is hypothesized that children evaluate the previously accessed (or constructed) responses and select the most positively evaluated response for enactment, At Step 6, the chosen response is behaviorally enacted. According to previous studies, children’s aggression can affect all 6 stages of the social information processing model.Children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) are strongly affected by aggressive behavior and negative emotions. DMDD is recently included in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) as a mood disorder. It is characterized by two main symptoms, namely anger and irritability. A problem that these individuals are faced with is the tendency to misinterpret other people’s intentions, something which worsens aggression. These children find it much more difficult to experience sensory processing and perceptual behavior than normal children. Characterized by the aggressive behavioral component, children with DMDD pay too much attention to negative emotional stimuli such as anger. In addition, children with chronic irritability experience more problems in processing emotional stimuli and regulating emotions. This study aims to evaluate and compare early stages of  social information processing in children with disruptive mood dysregulation disorder (DMDD) and normal children based on the social cognitive model of Crick and Dodge.

This research was conducted with a causal-comparative method on 58 children with DMDD and 167 normal Boys, aged between 9 to 12 years, studying at elementary school in Booshehr. The participants were randomly selected using a cluster sampling technique, Anger and Irritability Questionnaire (AIQ), and clinical interview based on DSM-5. They were then compared using « Childrenchr Evaluation of Everyday Social Encounters Questionnaire (Bell, Luebbe, Swenson  and Allwood, 2009).  Data were analyzed using descriptive and inferential statistical methods such as mean, variance, and Multivariable Analyze of Variance (MANOVA) test by SPSS-19 software.

The results from the multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) showed a significant difference between group in the stages of interpretation of social cues(F=5.5, P=.001, Partial Eta Squared=.128), clarification or selection of a goal(F=6.65, P=.001, Partial Eta Squared=.159), emotional processing(4.01, P=.004, Partial Eta Squared=.07), response access or construction(P=7.02, P=.001, Partial Eta Squared=.115).

The conducted studies showed that children with DMDD were more biased in an ambiguous social situation in the early stages of social information processing. They were also significantly less competent than their normal peers in internal positive causal attribution, external positive causal attribution (positive attribution to others’ behaviors), and positive interpretation of otherschr(chr('39')39chr('39')) intentions in a social situation. Children with DMDD were also more biased than their normal peers in their negative interpretation of others’ intentions. However, there was no significant difference between them in interpreting the causes of events in external negative attribution and internal negative attribution  in ambiguous social situations. DMDD children exhibited greater anger, worried or nervous, and sad or down in emotional processing and provided less happy processing. In terms of goal formation/clarification, children with DMDD mainly preferred anger- and avoidance-based goals and were less involved in the relationship- and dignity-centered goals. Moreover, children with DMDD produced fewer social responses and were more willing to provide ager-based and active avoidance responses, compared to their normal peers.  Various studies demonstrated that maladaptive social information processing can justify behavioral-emotional maladjustment in most children. Therefore, it is recommended to evaluate the effectiveness of interventional protocols based on the Dodge model in future studies in order to treat and mitigate the symptoms of disruptive dysregulation disorder.