Reciprocal Influences between Negative Life Events and Callous-Unemotional Traits

Abstract

The full-text may be used and/or reproduced, and given to third parties in any format or medium, without prior permission or charge, for personal research or study, educational, or not-for-pro t purposes provided that:• a full bibliographic reference is made to the original source • a link is made to the metadata record in DRO • the full-text is not changed in any way The full-text must not be sold in any format or medium without the formal permission of the copyright holders.Please consult the full DRO policy for further details. Children with conduct problems and co-occurring callous-unemotional (CU) traits show more severe, stable, and aggressive antisocial behaviors than those without CU traits. Exposure to negative life events has been identified as an important contributing factor to the expression of CU traits across time, although the directionality of this effect has remained unknown due to a lack of longitudinal study. The present longitudinal study examined potential bidirectional effects of CU traits leading to experiencing more negative life events and negative life events leading to increases in CU traits across three years among a sample of community-based schoolaged (M=10.9, SD=1.71 years) boys and girls (N = 98). Repeated rating measures of CU traits, negative life events and conduct problems completed by children and parents during annual assessments were moderately to highly stable across time. Cross-lagged models supported a reciprocal relationship of moderate magnitude between child-reported CU traits and "controllable" negative life events. Parent-reported CU traits predicted "uncontrollable" life events at the earlier time point and controllable life events at the later time point, but no reciprocal effect was evident. These findings have important implications for understanding developmental processes that contribute to the stability of CU traits in youth.Keywords: callous-unemotional traits, psychopathy, negative life events, maltreatment, reciprocal effects, longitudinal CU TRAITS AND NEGATIVE LIFE EVENTS 3 Reciprocal Influences Between Negative Life Events and Callous-Unemotional TraitsChildren with conduct problems and co-occurring callous-unemotional (CU) traits are a unique subpopulation showing greater impairment and more severe, stable, and aggressive antisocial behaviors across development relative to those low on CU traits (Byrd, Loeber, & Pardini, 2012;McMahon et al., 2010). CU traits describe individuals characterized by low levels of empathy and guilt, uncaring attitudes and behaviors, and a shallow experience and expression of emotions. They are believed to be a developmental precursor to psychopathic personality disorder, capturing its affective discomfort component (Lynam, Caspi, Moffitt, Loeber, & Stouthamer-Loeber, 2007). Analogous to adults with psychopathy, children with CU traits show a reward dominant response style and are insensitive to punishment when primed with reward , are underreactive to others' distress cues (Blair, 1999;Kimonis, Frick, Loney, & Fazekas, 200...

Practitioner Review: Involving young people with callous unemotional traits in treatment – does it work? A systematic review

“…Although an examination of mediating effects was not possible with their study design, Salekin and colleagues hypothesized that increases in positive affect could produce reductions in CU traits. In addition to positive affect, interventions targeting general behavioral problems could help target a callous interpersonal style, particularly if this outcome stems from adverse life experiences (e.g., Kimonis, Centifanti, Allen, & Frick, ). This explanation could, in part, account for the decreases in levels of CU traits reported in the trial of mixed package treatment including CBT, medication, family therapy, and social skills work (Kolko et al., ), where changes in CU traits could have occurred as a response to improvements in general antisocial behavior over the 3 year follow‐up, although potential reciprocity between the CU traits and antisocial behavior over time was not explicitly tested.…”

<b>¿Como é o sofrimento de adolescentes diagnosticados de transtorno comportamental? Estudar da Teoria Fundamentada/ How is the suffering of adolescents diagnosed with behavioral disorders? A Grounded Theory Study<b>

“…El análisis de las relaciones parentales, por tanto, se desvela como un foco fundamental en el abordaje de este problema, como lo ponen de manifiesto otras investigaciones (16,17) .Se ha evidenciado que a medida que soportan durante más tiempo la falta de acompañamiento y supervisión de sus padres, o el aislamiento en el colegio, aprenden poco a poco a utilizar la defensa más primitiva: la agresividad en forma de peleas o enfrentamientos. Estas conductas antisociales son en realidad señales de un sufrimiento que deben ser investigadas con mayor profundidad dada la controversia que existe entre los planteamientos profesionales (18) .…”

“…Por otro lado, las narrativas de los adolescentes muestran que son capaces de juzgar la inadecuación de su conducta, la complejidad de las relaciones parentales y de la realidad social en la que están inmersos: aspectos destacados también en otros estudios (4,5,18) . Algunos discursos de los informantes han reflejado cómo la proximidad afectiva de algún adulto referente, y la comunicación orientadora y empática les ha servido de apoyo, y con ello han podido normalizar su vida.…”

Callous-Unemotional Traits Moderate the Relation Between Prenatal Testosterone (2D:4D) and Externalising Behaviours in Children

“…However, children with CU traits may be further exposed to stressors that result in pervasive and serious EB because of how they interact with their environment. For example, children with CU traits have been shown to experience greater negative life events over time, which may be a consequence of their own fearless and risky behaviours that lead to encountering dangerous environments or situations where they are likely to suffer stressful events [87–91]. Our main finding could suggest that a child with a genetic vulnerability to CU traits is already, pre-birth , susceptible to developing EB caused by environmental factors; in this case, elevated levels of PT activated by maternal stress.…”