| The risk assessment of violent recidivism is especially important to risk evaluation for prisoners.As aggression is a stable factor to prisoners’ violent recidivism,assessing their aggressive behavior can prevent and reduce their violent recidivism risk after parole or release,which is vital to social security and stable development.Studies have shown that aggressive behavior has been found to be influenced by childhood adversities and genetic susceptibility(such as MAOAuVNTR low activity allele).However,most of the studies only focus on linear summation,neglecting the interaction among factors and non-linear relationships.The assessment of prisoners’ aggression has not considered subtypes of aggression,and often conducted by questionnaires.These problems constrain effective prediction of aggression.This study adopted the gene-environment interaction design to exam the effect of childhood adversity on proactive and reactive aggression,and the moderation of MAOA-uVNTR,COMT Val158 Met,and 5-HTTLPR polymorphism among 432 male prisoners in Guangdong Province.In this study,latent class model is applied to identify the classification of childhood adversities among male prisoners.Using assessment by experiment paradigm and questionnaires as aggressive indicators.Blood samples were collected in order to extract DNA,and assess MAOA-uVNTR,COMT Val158 Met,and 5-HTTLPR polymorphism.The main results were as follows:(1)Four latent classes were identified: Neglect(11.7%),Sexual Abuse with Household Substance(12%),Poly-victimized(11.6%),Low adversities(64.7%).(2)Based on the results of the questionnaire,Poly-victimized,Sexual abuse with Household Substance and Neglect group had significantly higher proactive and reactive aggression than Low adversities group.Poly-victimized group had significantly higher proactive and reactive aggression than Neglect group.However,the results of the experiment paradigm showed no main effects of genetic polymorphism on two types of aggression.(3)The results of the questionnaire showed no main effects of genetic polymorphism on two types of aggression.However,COMT gene significantly interacted with childhood adversity in predicting prisoners’ reactive aggression,but not the proactive aggression.Specifically,Neglect group carrying the Met allele displayed significantly higher reactive aggression scores than did their counterparts with Val homozygotes,and Poly-victimized group carrying the Met allele displayed significantly lower reactive aggression scores than did their counterparts with Val homozygotes.Furthermore,based on the results of the experiment paradigm,Polyvictimized group carrying Val homozygotes,and Neglect group carrying the Met allele exhibited more reactive aggression under high provocation than their low provocation condition counterparts.Male prisoners’ proactive aggression and reactive aggression was influenced by the classification of childhood adversities.The effect of childhood adversities on reactive aggression was moderated by COMT gene.The findings would help identifying the genetic indicators of highly aggressive individuals and detect susceptible individuals affected by childhood adverse experiences.Moreover,they provide theoretical and empirical reference for predicting violent behavior and building related intervention through training or medication. |
