Enhanced autonomic fear conditioning at age 3 in successful adult criminal offenders

There is a dearth of data on "successful" criminal offenders who escape detection and no research on emotion processes characterizing this group. This study examines whether autonomic fear conditioning at age 3 years is associated with adult successful and unsuccessful (caught) criminal offending. Participants (N = 940) were drawn from a birth cohort on the island of Mauritius. Autonomic fear conditioning was assessed at age 3, with skin conductance recorded to reinforced (CS+) and unreinforced (CS-) auditory stimuli. Self-report criminal offending was assessed at age 39. Offenders were divided into successful and unsuccessful groups based on detection/conviction at ages 23 and 39 and compared with noncriminal controls. There was a significant Group × Conditional Stimulus interaction (p = .019). A breakdown of this interaction indicated that successful criminals showed significantly greater responding to the CS+ than both unsuccessful criminals (p = .003) and controls (p < .001), with no group differences on CS-, indicating superior conditioning in successful criminals. Three sensitivity analyses confirmed these findings. We hypothesize that enhanced fear conditioning in successful offenders results in an enhanced ability to detect environmental cues associated with punishment, resulting in escape from law enforcement agencies. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).