Includes bibliographical references and index.

Antisocial behaviors (i.e., any form of disruptive behavior that involves violations of societal rules) are an everyday phenomenon and an urgent public health challenge with significant economic and social impact. The present case study is concerned with the role of one physiological system (i.e., eye-blink startle reactivity) in understanding heterogeneity in antisocial behavior. Affective and physiological reactions to emotional stimuli influence social interactions, and as such dysfunctions in the systems that regulate emotions can also explain individual differences in antisocial behavior. The eye-blink startle reflex, which is measured by placing electromyography electrodes under the eye, is an involuntary response to a sudden intense acoustic stimulus and is a well-established measure of defensive motivation that is modulated by dimensions of affect. A line of studies is presented to demonstrate that this measure is a good candidate for being a physiological marker for explaining heterogeneity in antisocial behavior. Findings indicate that antisocial individuals high on measures of limited prosocial emotions (lack of guilt and empathy, callous-unemotional traits) and low on anxiety are characterized by low startle reactivity to fearful and violent stimuli. However, antisocial individuals high on anxiety, irrespective of their limited prosocial emotions, score on the opposite extreme by showing high startle reactivity to negative stimuli. These findings were replicated in samples collected during childhood, adolescence, and adulthood, and point to a continuum of low to high defensive reactivity. This evidence indicates that it is important to develop intervention programs that explicitly address the physiological profile of heterogeneous antisocial groups to increase treatment efficacy.

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