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Heart rate level and antisocial behavior in children and adolescents: a meta-analysis
1Department of Psychology and Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, CA 90089, USA.
Objective:
To assess whether antisocial children are characterized by low heart rate.
Method:
A meta-analysis was conducted on 45 independent effect sizes of the resting heart rate-antisocial behavior relationship obtained from 40 studies meeting inclusion and exclusion criteria. Studies were conducted between 1971 to 2002 using a total of 5,868 children. A secondary meta-analysis was also conducted on heart rate during a stressor.
Results:
Significant overall effect sizes were found for both resting heart rate (d = -0.44, p <.0001) and heart during a stressor (d = -0.76, p <.0001). Gender, age, method of recording, use of psychiatric control group, recruitment source, concurrent versus prospective nature of testing, and source of behavioral rating all failed to moderate this relationship.
Conclusions:
Low resting heart rate appears to be the best-replicated biological correlate to date of antisocial behavior in children and adolescents. Several theoretical interpretations of this relationship are outlined that should be examined in future studies.
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