Grandiose-Manipulative, Callous-Unemotional, and Daring-Impulsive: the Prediction of Psychopathic Traits in Adolescence and their Outcomes in Adulthood

The Role of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) and Psychopathic Features on Juvenile Offending Criminal Careers to Age 18

“…Prior work (Bergtrøm & Farrington, 2018) and the current study find youth with psychopathic traits or features, specifically CU and daring–impulsive (the callousness/recalcitrant feature in the current study), are more likely to have ACE exposure such as a parent with a conviction history. This suggests a relevance of such psychopathic features in the intergenerational transmission of offending (Auty et al, 2015), as crime is concentrated within a small proportion of families such as the 6% of families accounting for over 50% of all convictions in the CSDD (Farrington & Bergtrøm, 2018) and the 8% of families accounting for 43% of all arrests in the Pittsburgh Youth Study (Farrington et al, 2001).…”

“…The current study sought to uncover a potential mediating mechanism by which the ACE–offending relationship manifests. Leveraging work on adolescent psychopathic traits (Bergtrøm & Farrington, 2018; Corrado et al, 2004; DeLisi et al, 2014) and calls to incorporate psychopathy into criminal career and longitudinal research (Farrington, 2005), we demonstrate psychopathic features mediate between 37% and almost all of the effects of ACE exposures on longitudinal juvenile offending/justice system outcomes up to age 18. Future work should continue to elucidate the pathways by which cumulative abuse, neglect, and household dysfunctions drive adolescent criminal offending.…”

“…Replication of the current study would benefit from leveraging a validated tool specific to the measurement of adolescent psychopathy and features of psychopathy. Additionally, recent work has recommended against using these traditional CU scales, instead suggesting researchers create such measures that have less overlap with other dimensions and traits of psychopathy (Salekin, 2017; see also Bergtrøm & Farrington, 2018). The current study intentionally avoided the labeling of adolescents as psychopathic or suggesting that we are indeed measuring psychopathy and did not distinguish between primary (resistant to socialization experiences; Viding et al, 2005) and secondary psychopathy (acquired traits cultivated by experiences; Kerig & Becker, 2010; Tatar et al, 2012; Vaughn et al, 2009).…”

“…Recent research has found children scoring high on both callous–unemotionality (CU) and daring–impulsive were characterized by higher childhood risk and poorer adult life outcomes (convictions, fighting, and drinking problems), as were those scoring high on both CU and grandiose–manipulative, though to a lesser extent (Bergtrøm & Farrington, 2018). These results suggest that the exclusive focus on CU traits may not be sufficient (e.g., Frogner et al, 2018; Salekin, 2016a, 2016b).…”

Parental Warmth and Hostility and the Development of Psychopathic Behaviors: A Longitudinal Study of Young Offenders

“…Traits of callousness and unemotionality (CU) are suggested to be particularly important in the development of adult psychopathy, identifying a small subgroup of juveniles who later exhibit psychopathic traits as adults and show severe and stable patterns of antisocial lifestyles (Frick et al, 2014;Frick & White, 2008). Despite the emphasis of CU traits in evaluating risks of psychopathy in adolescents, CU traits in combination with interpersonal and behavioral domains seem to designate a clinically interesting group with poorer adult life outcomes (Bergstrøm & Farrington, 2018;Salekin et al, 2018). Adolescents with psychopathic traits show insensitivity to punishment and elevated reward-seeking behaviors (Byrd et al, 2014), and they are characterized by deficits in recognizing and responding to emotional expressions, especially distressed emotions (Dawel et al, 2012;Marsh & Blair, 2008).…”