These findings highlight several factors in the child and in his or her social environment that are associated with CU traits in the absence of serious CP and that may suggest targets for intervention for youth who may lack prosocial emotions.
The aim of this study was to compare callous-unemotional (CU) traits versus the multidimensional psychopathy construct in their ability to predict future and stable antisocial behavior. At baseline, a community sample of 996 Cypriot 12-year old adolescents (52% girls) completed measures that tap conduct problems (CP) and psychopathic traits, including CU. CP, aggression, and substance use were self-reported at 1–3 year follow-ups. Youths were assigned to six mutually exclusive groups based on their baseline levels of CP and psychopathic traits. Youth with CP scoring high on all three psychopathic traits dimensions (Psychopathic Personality + CP) showed the most robust and highest risk for future and stable CP, aggression, and substance use, followed by youth who were high on all three psychopathic traits dimensions but displayed no concurrent CP (Psychopathic Personality Only) and CP youth with low levels of psychopathic traits (CP Only). Youth with CP who merely manifested callous-unemotional traits (Callous-Unemotional + CP) were only at risk for future CP. The findings suggest that the CU traits-based approach for subtyping children with CP is less informative compared to a subtyping approach using various psychopathic traits dimensions in predicting future and stable forms of various antisocial outcomes. These findings and their consistency with prior work indicate the need for additional research to examine the various psychopathic traits dimensions rather than focusing solely on CU traits, especially for CP subtyping purposes.Electronic supplementary materialThe online version of this article (10.1007/s10862-018-9659-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.
The construct of psychopathy remains underrepresented in the clinical diagnosis of Conduct Disorder (CD) as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 th edition (DSM-5) only addresses one out of the three dimensions of child psychopathy, Callous Unemotional (CU) traits. This study tests if and to what extent there are unique and interactive associations of CU traits, impulsivity and grandiosity with child and adolescent CD symptoms. Data were collected from two separate community samples of children (N=1599; Mage=9.46, SD=1.65; 52% female) and adolescents (N=2719; Mage=16.99, SD=0.99; 49% female), who were followed longitudinally after a year. Hierarchical linear regression analyses were conducted, testing crosssectional and longitudinal associations with CD symptoms, taking into account all three psychopathy dimensions. The cross-sectional findings indicate that only youth presenting a combination of all three psychopathy dimensions scored above the clinical cut-off score for CD.On the other hand, longitudinal findings provided evidence that the combination of high initial levels of CD and CU traits as well as the combination between CD, grandiosity and impulsivity can lead to clinical levels of future CD symptoms. Findings also indicated that CU traits and impulsivity more strongly predicted adolescent than child CD symptoms, and that CU traits were more strongly associated with boys' than girls' CD symptoms. Findings support the inclusion of CU traits as a specifier for the diagnosis of CD, and provide evidence that other psychopathy dimensions can also help clinicians to better understand and treat youth with CD, and should be considered for future revisions of the DSM.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.