Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits are characterized by limited empathy, lack of guilt or remorse, and callous use of others. They are a risk factor for adult psychopathy, especially when comorbid with conduct problems. Thus, efforts to identify risk factors and consequences of CU traits have been prominent. One construct that may act as both a risk factor for and consequence of CU traits among youth is anxiety. While the most consistent finding is in this literature is a negative relation between CU traits and anxiety, findings have been mixed. The present study examined bidirectional relations between three subtypes of anxiety (i.e. physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, and worry and oversensitivity), CU traits, and conduct problems over six months among a sample of primarily African American middle school students. Results showed that CU traits at Time 1 were not associated with changes in physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, or worry and oversensitivity at Time 2. Similarly, physiological anxiety, fear and concentration problems, and worry and oversensitivity at Time 1 were not associated with increased CU traits at Time 2. Further, no longitudinal relations were found between CU traits and conduct problems. The six-month timeframe may have been too short to see changes in anxiety and CU traits given their stability. The models tested also did not take into account the impact of factors such as distress and trauma which may influence bidirectional relations between CU traits and anxiety.

Research documents considerable anxiety-related heterogeneity in youth with callous-unemotional traits (CU), a pattern of callousness and shallow emotionality (Frick & Ellis, 1999) associated with lasting impairment (Fontaine et al., 2011). This heterogeneity may relate to behavioral differences, with the presence of both CU and anxiety associated with increased questionnaire-based reports of aggression and/or historical documentations of past aggression (Kahn et al., 2013). Anxiety in CU youth is associated with greater attention to others’ distress cues (Kimonis et al., 2012) compared to CU-only counterparts, in contrast to the decreased distress-cue attentiveness thought to contribute to aggression in CU youth (Dadds et al., 2011). Through its association with improvements in CU youths’ ability to detect others’ distress, anxiety may heighten autonomic activity associated with emotional processing, in contrast to the dampened autonomic activity observed in CU youth (de Wied et al., 2012). It is possible that CU associations with distress-cue recognition and parasympathetic-based emotion-regulation vary as a function of anxiety, and in turn are associated with aggression. The present study, conducted with a sample of youth ages 7-13 (N=45), incorporated laboratory tasks and self- and caregiver-report questionnaires to assess the extent to which child anxiety, traumatic stress, CU, and their interactions, predict observed aggressive behavior toward other children and perceptions of others’ emotions while experimentally manipulating distress-cue salience. Exploratory analyses considered parasympathetic activity that may associate with observed relationships. Overall, results align with non-experimental research suggesting that CU is associated with greater aggression in the presence of anxiety (Fanti et al., 2013), and clarify that anxiety moderates the effect of CU on aggression, but only in the absence of distress cues from a potential victim. Results also hint that relationships between anxiety and parasympathetic responses to others’ distress may help explain anxiety-related heterogeneity in CU youths’ aggression. Findings suggest that children with CU and anxiety may benefit from emotional training to anticipate others’ distress and identify distress cues. In aggressive situations involving these youth, increasing others’ distress-cue salience may attenuate violence. Future research must further investigate emotional processing deficits, and their role in the development of aggression, among CU youth with anxiety.

Childhood callous-unemotional traits (CU), defined as a lack of guilt, empathy, and affect, are important in understanding conduct problems and other maladaptive behaviors. Early CU, in particular, has received recent attention, though current conceptualizations often extrapolate from the adult literature and lack a more nuanced developmental perspective. CU, however, may manifest differently earlier in development. The aims of this project were to further our current understanding of the early CU construct by investigating; 1) long-term stability and its underlying genetic and environmental etiology from early childhood to adolescence; 2) structural, developmental, and etiological similarities and distinctions between CU and prosociality; and 3) the extent to which early CU and prosociality differentially predict adolescent outcomes. I hypothesized modest stability and predictive validity of early CU into adolescence, and expected early CU and prosociality to be separate but related constructs. Two longitudinal twin samples were used to address these aims (Sample 1: Ages 2 and 3 years [N=314 twin pairs], followed-up in adolescence M=14.5 years [N=128 twin pairs]; Sample 2: Ages 3, 4, and 5 years [N=310 twin pairs]). Study hypotheses were largely supported. In Study 1 (Sample 1), parent-reported CU was modestly stable, and common genetic factors contributed to this stability. However, most of the genetic and environmental variance was unique to adolescent CU. In Study 2 (Sample 2), confirmatory factor analysis, longitudinal growth modeling, and twin analyses supported early CU and prosociality as distinct but related constructs at the structural, developmental, and etiological level, respectively. Study 3 (Sample 1) further supported distinctions between early CU and low prosociality by demonstrating that both independently predicted adolescent externalizing behavioral outcomes. These studies highlight the long-term developmental significance of early CU, in both its stability and predictive validity into adolescence. Furthermore, this work demonstrates the relevance of prosociality to our understanding of early CU, highlighting the utility of integrating childhood CU research with work on normative prosocial development. That being said, CU and prosociality are not simply flip sides of the same coin in early childhood, and should be viewed as distinct constructs that independently explain maladaptive behavior.

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The presence of callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., shallow affect, lack of empathy) in children predicts reduced prosocial behavior. Similarly, CU traits relate to emotion recognition deficits, which may be related to deficits in visual attention to the eye region of others. Notably, recognition of others' distress necessarily precedes sympathy, and sympathy is a key predictor in prosocial outcomes. Thus, visual attention and emotion recognition may mediate the relationship between CU traits and deficient prosocial behavior. Elucidating these connections furthers the development of treatment protocols for children with behavioral problems and CU traits. This study seeks to: (1) extend this research to younger children, including girls; (2) measure eye gaze using infrared eye-tracking technology; and (3) test the hypothesis that CU traits are linked to prosocial behavior deficits via reduced eye gaze, which in turn leads to deficits in fear recognition. Children (n = 81, ages 6-9) completed a computerized, eye-tracked emotion recognition task and a standardized prosocial behavior task while parents reported on the children's CU traits. Results partially supported hypotheses, in that CU traits predicted less time focusing on the eye region for fear expressions, and certain dimensions of eye gaze predicted accuracy in recognizing some emotions. However, the full model was not supported for fear or distress expressions. Conversely, there was some evidence that the link between CU traits and deficient prosocial behavior is mediated by reduced recognition for low intensity happy expressions, but only in girls. Theoretical and practical implications for these findings are considered. / Master of Science

Research has shown that children displaying conduct problems (CP) early in life are at greater risk for severe CP and other negative outcomes later in life. However, not all children with early-onset CP will develop severe CP over the life-course. Thus, it is important to identify those at greater risk, preferably as early as possible, in order to adequately prevent a negative development. Psychopathic traits have received much attention in research on risk for severe CP, involving attempts to extend these traits, and their association to CP to childhood. However, research has thus far mainly focused on one dimension of psychopathic traits, that is callousunemotional (CU) traits, to some extent neglecting two other dimensions of traits commonly included in a psychopathic personality: an interpersonal, and a behavioural dimension. Hence, we still do not know if a full psychopathic personality is identifiable in early childhood, and if and how it is related to the development of severe and persistent CP. The aim of this dissertation was to examine if a psychopathic personality could be identified in early childhood, if psychopathic traits are stable over time, and if and how the psychopathic personality is related to childhood CP. Overall, the results show that psychopathic traits, as well as the display of a psychopathic personality, could be identified in early childhood. These traits were stable over time, and they were clearly and strongly related to childhood CP. Additionally, the combination of early-onset CP and a full psychopathic personality seems to be the most precarious for severe and persistent CP, even more so than the combination of CP and CU traits. With careful consideration to ethical aspects, these results are discussed both in relation to a developmental psychopathology perspective on CP, as well as in relation to diagnostic practice as it is framed today.

There is a growing body of research suggesting that the presence of psychopathic traits, and more specifically, callous-unemotional traits in youth, may constitute a distinct developmental pathway to aggressive behavior. However, ethnic groups are understudied in this literature such that it is unclear whether the correlates of psychopathic traits (i.e., violence, aggression, emotional processing deficits) are equally associated with these traits across different ethnic groups. Also, most theories on the development of psychopathy have provided biologically-based explanations for the cognitive-affective deficits that are considered to be core features of psychopathy. However, research suggests that exposure to adverse contextual environments is also associated with emotional processing deficits and could be important in the etiology of psychopathic traits. The current study examined callous-unemotional traits, emotional processing using the emotional pictures dot-probe task, and exposure to adverse contextual environments (i.e., community violence, abuse) in sixty African American and twenty Caucasian detained boys (n = 80). The results of the current study revealed that aggression, delinquency, and violence were associated with psychopathic traits and this did not differ across ethnic groups. Also, there was an interaction between psychopathic traits and aggression that supported past research and indicated that aggressive youth high on psychopathic traits showed a reduced responsiveness to distressing stimuli but aggressive youth low on psychopathic traits showed an enhanced responsivity to distressing stimuli. The association with contextual factors revealed that exposure to community violence was correlated with both psychopathic traits and emotional response to distress stimuli. There was also an interaction between psychopathic traits and exposure to community violence that was similar to the interaction found between psychopathic traits and aggression. That is, psychopathy was inversely related to emotional responses to distressing stimuli, but only for youth high on exposure to violence. Both of these interactions suggested that there was a group of youth high on callous-unemotional traits that also showed strong emotional responses to distressing stimuli. Analyses indicated that this group of youth experienced greater levels of abuse, consistent with research showing that abused children tend to be hypervigilant to emotional stimuli but may also show deficits in empathy. These findings suggest that there may be multiple developmental pathways to psychopathy and have important implications for how treatment approaches should be uniquely tailored to the needs of youth in each pathway.

This study sought to explore the differential associations of CU traits, narcissistic traits, and Machiavellian traits with overt aggression, relational aggression, delinquency, behavioral dysregulation, and emotional dysregulation in a community sample of boys and girls (ages 11-17). Results indicated that the three personality traits were significantly correlated with each other, yet distinct. CU traits, narcissistic traits, and Machiavellian traits demonstrated different unique associations with behavior problems. Specifically, narcissistic traits showed the strongest unique associations with overt aggression, relational aggression, behavioral dysregulation, and emotional dysregulation. CU traits showed the second strongest unique associations with overt aggression, delinquency and behavioral dysregulation, but were not associated with relational aggression or emotional dysregulation. Lastly, Machiavellian traits showed a strong unique association with emotional dysregulation, but were not uniquely associated with externalizing behavior problems. These findings have implications for intervention with aggressive and antisocial youth.

The present study examined the relationship between callous-unemotional (CU) traits and self-reported leadership characteristics during group crimes among 614 first-time offenders participating in a large multi-site study. Resistance to peer influence (RPI) and self-esteem (SE) were hypothesized to mediate the relationship between CU traits and leadership during group crime. The results indicated that youth with CU traits were more likely to commit crimes with others. Further, although youth with CU traits reported they came up with the idea for crimes and were leaders during group crimes, these relationships were not mediated by RPI and SE. Future research on youth with CU traits characteristics during group crimes is recommended and implications for tailored treatments of this population are discussed.