Development of Psychopathy from Childhood

Abstract

Serious conduct problems are a serious mental health and public policy concern. Such conduct problems are highly related to criminal behavior and are associated with a host of other social, emotional, and academic problems. In addition, serious conduct problems in childhood predict later impairments in the domains of mental health, legal, educational, social, occupational, and physical health. In the past two decades, a signiicant body of research has emerged reining how the key features associated with psychopathy may be expressed in children and adolescents. These researches have focused largely on the presence of callous-unemotional traits, which correspond closely to the afective dimension of psychopathy-core to the construct in adult samples. Several reviews have focused on important theoretical questions related to how best to identify psychopathy in children and adolescents but do not directly address their importance for understanding, classifying, and treating youths with severe conduct problems. So, in the forefront of these studies, I aimed to review the development of psychopathy from childhood. In this chapter, topics related to psychopathy, such as diagnosis and nosology, epidemiologic studies, etiologic factors, assessment, diagnostic interviews, comorbid disorders and longitudinal outcome, treatment modalities, and treatment outcome in samples of children and adolescents, were included.

The association between psychopathy and delinquency in juveniles: A three-level meta-analysis

“…The first meta-analysis on the association between psychopathy and delinquency was conducted by Asscher et al (2011), statistically summarizing the research until 2010. However, many new studies appeared after 2010, while in general research on psychopathic traits has increasingly become important in the explanation of the development and maintenance of serious juvenile delinquency over the last decade (Uytun, 2017). Also, a larger variety of instruments to assess psychopathic traits has been used in more recent research (e.g., DeLisi, 2016 for an overview).…”

“…To prevent negative outcomes and gain insight into the etiology of delinquent behavior as well as on how psychopathic traits and delinquent behavior are related, it is crucial to identify psychopathy at an early stage in life. Probably therefore, the interest in child psychopathy has increased enormously over the last decade (Uytun, 2017). As a consequence, many instruments for assessing psychopathy in children have been developed (DeLisi, 2016).…”