Core features of callous–unemotional traits: Network analysis of the inventory of callous–unemotional traits in offender and community samples

Abstract

Objective: Callous-unemotional (CU) traits have been added as a specifier labeled with "Limited Prosocial Emotion" used to diagnose conduct disorder in the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. However, little is known about the core features of CU traits. Thus, this study aimed to identify the most central component of CU traits from a network perspective. Method: Network analysis was applied to investigate the network structure of CU traits operationalized by the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a sample of juvenile offenders (M age = 17.14, N = 609) and community youths (M age = 10.82, N = 487).Results: Our findings showed that items assessing callousness are the most central in the network across both samples. Also, the unemotional items were found to be located at a peripheral position, with fewer links apparent to callousness and uncaring items.Conclusions: Callousness might be the key feature of CU traits in youths. Our findings further advance the general understanding about the core features of CU traits in clinical practice.

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“…In recent years, many studies have applied network analysis to investigate how symptoms of different mental disorders are interrelated, particularly in the fields of anxiety and mood-related disorders (reviewed by Contreras et al, 2019). In the field of externalizing disorders, network analysis has been applied to symptoms of ADHD (Burns et al, 2022;Goh et al, 2020Goh et al, , 2021aMartel et al, 2016Martel et al, , 2021Preszler et al, 2020;Silk et al, 2019), ODD (Smith et al, 2017), or ADHD and ODD together (Martel et al, 2017;Preszler & Burns, 2019), to CU traits (Bansal et al, 2020;Deng et al, 2021), and to CU traits in conjunction with ODD and CD (Bansal et al, 2021), in samples ranging from preschool age to adulthood. Furthermore, a recent study explored the relations between ADHD symptoms, executive functioning, and temperament traits, and found support for the primary role of effortful control as a potential risk marker for the characterization of ADHD across childhood and adolescence (Goh et al, 2021a, b).…”