Factor Structure of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Representative Sample of German 9th Grade Students

Abstract

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits represent the affective components of the psychopathy construct and show a strong relationship to violence and conduct-disorder in children. The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) is the current standard to assess CU traits. Despite the ICU having originally been constructed as a four-dimensional instrument, several studies found a threefactorial structure in combination with a general ICU-factor to be the best fitting factor-model. An imbalance in the number of positively and negatively worded items can be observed between the identified ICU dimensions. To investigate the effect of item keying on the factor structure we tested different factor-models in data stemming from a large sample (N = 3878) of German ninth grade students. Our findings suggest that the original four-factorial structure with a method factor shows good model fit. This solution is furthermore in line with the specifiers of the additional coding of Limited Prosocial Emotions for Conduct Disorder in the DSM-V.

Dimensional Latent Structure of Callous-Unemotional Traits in German Adolescents: Results from Taxometric Analyses

“…The majority of all standardized mean differences exceeded the required cut-off of d = 1.25 (see Table 1 ). We observed an average correlation between r = 0.39 and r = 0.39, and smaller correlations in the hypothetical categorical groups (APSD: between r = 0.25 and r = 0.28 [taxon], between r = 0.32 and r = 0.35 [complement]; Kliem et al, 2020 : between r = 0.22 to 0.25 [taxon], between r = 0.32 and 0.35 [complement]). Figure 2 depicts the graphical taxometric results for the CCFI profile analyses of both four-indicator sets.…”

“…Figure 2 depicts the graphical taxometric results for the CCFI profile analyses of both four-indicator sets. Strong support for the superiority of a dimensional model was detected regarding the total sample (APSD: CCFI mean profile = 0.292; Kliem et al, 2020 : CCFI mean profile = 0.285), the male sample (CCFI mean profile = 0.313 / 0.318), and the female sample (CCFI mean profile = 0.359 / 0.332).

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Fig. 2 Results of the CCFI-profile analyses based on 4-indicator-sets (APSD↑and Kliem et al, 2020 ↓) for the total sample (right), male sample (middle), and female sample (left)

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“…The following analysis uses child-report data from ninth grade students in Germany originating from a periodically conducted representative survey (see Kliem et al, 2020 ), carried out by the Criminological Research Institute of Lower Saxony in spring 2015. The Ministry of Education of Lower Saxony (this constitutes the state’s educational authority) approved the survey and provided ethics auditing.…”

“…We tested two different three-indicator sets based on the work of Essau et al ( 2006 ) [ Uncaring (#3, #5, #13, #15, #16, #17, #23, #24), Unemotional (#1, #6, #14, #19, #22) Callous (#2, #4, #7, #8, #9, #10, #11, #12, #18, #20, #21)] and Kimonis et al ( 2015 ) (excluding item #2 and #10). Furthermore, we analyzed two four-indicator sets on the original model of the APSD [ Uncaring (#4, #8, #12, #17, #21, #24), Unemotional (#1, #6, #10, #14, #19, #22), Callous (#2, #5, #9, #13, #16, #18), and Careless (#3, #7, #11, #15, #20, #23)] and the work of Kliem et al ( 2020 ) (excluding item #2, #10, and #13).…”