The developmental course of psychopathic features: Investigating stability, change, and long-term outcomes

Abstract

This multi-cohort study delineates developmental trajectories of psychopathic features across childhood and adolescence (ages 7–16) and investigates associations with adult outcomes (ages~23–34). Although most youth demonstrated consistently low levels of psychopathic features, approximately 10%−15% followed a chronically high trajectory. A similar number (~14%) displayed initially high levels that decreased over time, while others (~10%−20%) followed an increasing pattern. Boys in the chronically high trajectory exhibited the most deleterious adult outcomes and some evidence suggested that youth in the decreasing subgroup experienced fewer maladaptive outcomes than those in the increasing and high groups. Findings revealed substantial malleability in the developmental course of psychopathic features and suggest that unique pathways may exert considerable influence on future engagement in antisocial and criminal behaviors.

Further Validation of the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits in Chinese Children: Cross-Informants Invariance and Longitudinal Invariance

“…With regard to internal consistency, current study findings were consistent with those of most previous studies (Colins et al, 2016; Pechorro, Hawes, et al, 2017; Wang et al, 2017). As previously mentioned, the low values of Cronbach’s α values are partially due to the small number of items in the scale.…”

“…This is may reflect the development of a child’s ability to identify and/or express emotion, both due to their increase in age as well as increased exposure to others in the social (school) environment. However, it was difficult to determine the growth tendency given that there were only two time points used, and there could be significant within-person heterogeneity across childhood and adolescence (Byrd, Hawes, Loeber, & Pardini, 2018; Hawes et al, 2017). A longer time interval is required to better determine the change of CU traits over time.…”

“…First, as the sample used in this study was recruited from a single community primary school, the results—especially the teacher-report data—were subject to a clustering effect (e.g., class effect, with each teacher providing more than 40 children’s data). Future studies should include more diverse samples, particularly looking at clinical settings and/or juvenile offenders (Colins et al, 2016; Pechorro, Hawes, et al, 2017). Second, we examined the LMI of the ICU-11 in our sample with only a 6-month interval.…”

Longitudinal measurement invariance of the Child Problematic Trait Inventory in older Chinese children

“…It may suggest that the level of psychopathic tendencies decreases as children grow. Additionally, previous prospective studies [55–57] have provided evidence of important individual differences in the early developmental course of psychopathic traits. More importantly, different developed trajectories of psychopathic traits (i.e., stable high, increasing, decreasing, and stable low) and two trajectories (i.e., high or low) of conduct problems (CP) were identified in childhood [55], as well as five trajectories (e.g., low, moderate, adolescent-onset, childhood-limited, and early-onset chronic) of IC across both childhood and adolescence [56].…”

“…More importantly, different developed trajectories of psychopathic traits (i.e., stable high, increasing, decreasing, and stable low) and two trajectories (i.e., high or low) of conduct problems (CP) were identified in childhood [55], as well as five trajectories (e.g., low, moderate, adolescent-onset, childhood-limited, and early-onset chronic) of IC across both childhood and adolescence [56]. Therefore, there is enough reason to believe that significant within-person heterogeneity exists in the developmental course of psychopathy during both childhood and adolescence [54–57]. However, it is difficult to determine the growth tendency given that there were only two time points used.…”