Amygdala dysfunction and fear conditioning

• What is fear conditioning

  A child learns to associate being aggressive with punishment
• Dysfunctional amygdala and fear conditioning

  one can’t identify the social cues that’s indicate threat, so they may not associate angry faces with fear
• Characteristics of a dysfunctional amygdala

  Fearless

  overly aggressive

  anti-social
• Eysencks suggestion for individuals with intact fear conditioning

  They develop a conscience that deters from violent and aggressive behaviour
• key study - Yu Gao et al 


  longitudinal study

  1795 participants

  tested for fear conditioning at 3 years old, this test was measured by psychological arousal in response to a loud noise (sweating)

  twenty years later those who were not fear conditioned were mostly criminals and effectively fearless