Physiologically-Indexed and Self-Perceived Affective Empathy in Conduct-Disordered Children High and Low on Callous-Unemotional Traits

Abstract

Heart rate (HR) was employed to compare vicarious affective arousal across three groups of children (aged 7.6 - 11, N = 95): Conduct Disordered (CD) elevated on Callous-Unemotional traits (CD/CU), CD low on CU traits (CD-only), and [Symbol: see text]typically-developing' controls, matched in age, gender and socioeconomic background. While watching an emotion evocative film, participants' HR was monitored. Immediately after viewing, self-reported vicarious responses were obtained. Participants also completed the Bryant Empathy Index. CD/CU children displayed lower magnitude of HR change than both CD-only and controls. Both CD groups reported fewer vicarious responses and scored lower than controls on the empathy index. These results support distinct deficits across CD subsets, suggestive of distinct mechanisms underlying their antisocial conduct.

Trait psychopathy and utilitarian moral judgement: The mediating role of action aversion

“…At a neural level, adult criminal psychopaths (Decety, Skelly, & Kiehl, 2013) and children with high levels of callous-unemotional traits (Jones, Happe, Gilbert, Burnett, & Viding, 2010;Marsh et al, 2013) display reduced brain activity in empathy circuits (primarily anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex) when viewing stimuli featuring others experiencing pain. Individuals with higher levels of psychopathy also show reduced psychophysiological arousal in response to others' distress (Anastassiou-Hadjicharalambous & Warden, 2008a;Blair, 1999;Blair, Jones, Clark, & Smith, 1997 1.3.1.3. Psychopathy and cognitive theory of mind.…”

Development of Psychopathy from Childhood

“…Two studies were found that youths with both CD and higher CU traits showed a lower changing of heart rate to emotionally reminiscent ilms compared to youths with CD but without CU traits [132,133]. In addition, it was demonstrated that when anticipating aversive stimuli, skin conductance reactivity reduced in adolescents with psychopathic traits compared to controls [134,135].…”

Motor, emotional and cognitive empathic abilities in children with autism and conduct disorder

“…The presence of callous unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy, callous use of others) may be determining findings.CD children (n=33, age 7-11) with CU traits showed reduced basal HR and HR response to a scared boy, while no differences were found for CD children without CU traits (n=29) [1]. In two other studies HR response to film clips with sad people in DBD was investigated.Reduced HR response in DBD (n=22, age 8-12) was shown in one study [9], but no difference was found in the other study [16].…”