Health and Functional Outcomes for Shared and Unique Variances of Interpersonal Callousness and Low Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

Previous factor-analytic studies identify significant comorbidity between interpersonal-callous (IC) traits and low prosocial behavior (LPB), which, in turn, is associated with high levels of childhood risk exposure and psychopathology. Longitudinal associations between IC, LPB, or their combination, and early-adult health and social functioning have not been investigated, however. Extending a previously-identified bifactor model within a prospective birth cohort, this study applied latent path analysis to test direct and indirect pathways (via adolescent delinquency, substance use, and physical activity) between these general and specific factors (age 13) and (i) emotional problems (age 18), (ii) physical health problems (age 18), and (iii) classification as 'not in education, employment, or training' (NEET; age 20). All models controlled for childhood adversity and IQ. Bifactor-specific estimates indicated that the residual IC factor did not reliably denote unique variance over and above a general factor (IC/LPB). IC/LPB itself was directly associated with NEET classification, while the residual LPB factor was associated with better emotional and physical health. IC/LPB also indirectly associated with emotional problems via greater adolescent delinquency, and with physical health problems via lower physical activity. In contrast, residual LPB variance was either non-significantly or negatively related to these adolescent domains. Findings indicate that the shared variance underlying IC and LPB confers an increased risk for poor health and functional outcomes in emerging adulthood, and highlight delinquency and physical inactivity as potential adolescent treatment targets that may mitigate the risk for health difficulties at high levels of this IC/LPB construct.

Psychometric Properties of Parent Ratings on the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits in a Nationally Representative Sample of 5- to 12-Year-Olds

“…Furthermore, the path analysis in the current study (see Table 7) found significant and unique associations between the CU and LPE factors and outcomes (i.e., impairment, need for treatment). This is in line with work on adolescent self-report (Ray et al, 2016) and adolescents rated by parents (Meehan, Hawes, et al, 2019;Meehan, Maughan, et al, 2019), who also reported that CU and LPE were distinct and uniquely associated with outcomes. Collectively these results suggest that a two-factor model is appropriate for the ICU, and that these factors explain unique variance in important outcomes.…”

Self‐efficacy and callousness in consumer judgments of AI‐enabled checkouts

“…Such unemotionality heightens egocentric motivations, and greater manipulativeness and rudeness. Driven by heighted self‐interest, callous consumers might therefore display low prosocial behaviors (e.g., offering assistance to others in need; Meehan, Maughan, et al, 2019), take advantage of other stakeholders in service transactions such as brands, employees, and other consumers (Van Esch, Arli, et al, 2020), and display antisocial behaviors such as consumer delinquency and shoplifting (Meehan, Maughan, et al, 2019). In this regard, consumer callousness has unsettling and pivotal implications for consumer researchers and marketers to better manage the unmanageable consumers .…”

“…The latter type of consumer which is our focus may display attitudes, behaviors, and/or traits such as anxiety, cynicism, distrust (Arli et al, 2020), personal desires and dilemmas to be understood, rudeness, heightened self‐interest, and lack of caring (Small et al, 2007). This type of consumer is utilitarian and places less weight on her/his potentially inappropriate attitude and more on the utility of the product/brand and the extent to which it serves her/his own needs (Carson et al, 1998; Meehan, Maughan, et al, 2019). Given the paucity of consumer research on callousness, and to differentiate it from other related constructs (e.g., narcissism, selfishness; Cisek et al, 2014; Cooper‐Martin & Holbrook, 1993), we define consumer callousness as “an individual trait associated with consumers who display self‐centric, uncaring, and/or manipulative behaviors towards others”.…”

“…Taken together, the results support H 3 and delineated consumer callousness as a boundary condition. The conditional positive effect of AI‐enabled checkouts depending on self‐efficacy only occurs for callous consumers who value shopping convenience and are calculative about shopping inputs/outputs (Meehan, Maughan, et al, 2019), but not for their less callous counterparts.…”

Neonatal DNA methylation and childhood low prosocial behavior: An epigenome‐wide association meta‐analysis

“…Our use of trajectory‐based and dimensional approaches enabled us to examine associations for both a discrete group of “persistently low prosocial” children, as well as across a broader continuum of severity. Although the SDQ's prosocial scale has been shown to robustly associate with psychosocial and functional outcomes (Meehan, Maughan, & Barker, 2019), it may be too nonspecific to reliably detect a unified underlying biological substrate. Moreover, prosocial behavior is increasingly viewed as a multi‐faceted phenotype (Van IJzendoorn & Bakermans‐Kranenburg, 2014) that incorporates, and interacts with, a range of motivational, cognitive, and affective processes, including altruism, perspective‐taking, Theory of Mind, and empathic concern, as well as contextual factors (e.g., Imuta, Henry, Slaughter, Selcuk, & Ruffman, 2016; Preckel, Kanske, & Singer, 2018; Van der Graaff, Carlo, Crocetti, Koot, & Branje, 2018).…”