Poster #63 - The Longitudinal Relationship Between Callous-Unemotional Traits and Exposure to Community Violence in Adolescent Offenders

• In Event: 1-115 - Poster Session 03
  In Poster Session: PS 03 Section - Developmental Psychopathology

Integrative Statement

Background: Psychopathic traits (e.g. lack of remorse, superficial charm, and antisocial behaviors) are more common in juvenile justice populations compared to community samples (Castellana et al., 2014). Two variants of psychopathy have been proposed: primary psychopathy describes individuals with an inherent inability to feel empathy, while secondary psychopathy describes traits that develop in response to environmental causes (Karpman 1941, 1948). In youth samples, psychopathy is often represented by callous-unemotional (CU) traits, a dimension of psychopathy characterized by a lack of guilt and empathy. In youth, high levels of CU traits and low levels of anxiety are proposed to represent primary psychopathy, whereas high CU traits and high anxiety represent secondary psychopathy (Sharf et al., 2014). For secondary variants, CU traits may result from exposure to traumatic events (Kerig, et al., 2012). Community violence exposure (ECV), especially common in justice-involved youth (Kerig, et al., 2009), may be one such traumatic experience leading to high CU traits. Previous research has made connections between CU traits and ECV (Howard, et al., 2012), but there remains a need to better understand how traumatic experiences and CU traits may change and influence one another over time in serious adolescent offenders (Bennett, 2013).

Methods: Data from the Pathways to Desistance study (Mulvey, 2004) were used to examine primary and secondary pathways between ECV and CU traits. Participants were 1,170 male adolescent offenders ages 14-20 (M =16.56, SD = 1.16 at Time 1), convicted of a serious offense prior to adulthood. Participants completed the Exposure to Violence Inventory (ETV; Selner-O’Hagan et al., 1998), the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI, Andershed et al., 2002), and the Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI, Derogatis & Melisaratos, 1983) at Time 1 and Time 2.

Results: Latent profile analysis (LPA) was conducted to identify the two variants of psychopathy using indicators of anxiety and CU traits. LPA results identified three variants: (a) a moderate anxiety-high CU group (n = 111, 10.4% of sample), (b) a high anxiety-moderate CU group (n = 15, 1.4% of sample), and (c) a low anxiety-low CU group (n = 944, 88.2% of sample). Preliminary results with hierarchical linear regressions showed higher ECV at Time 1 predicted increased CU traits at Time 2 above and beyond previous CU traits (B = .104, p < .01). Time 1 CU traits also predicted higher ECV at Time 2 while controlling for previous levels of ECV (B = .158, p < .001). Cross-lagged panel analyses will be used to examine how ECV and CU traits influence each other over time within these three groups.

Conclusion: Results of the current study highlight the relationship between CU traits and ECV. These results also differ from previous research findings, suggesting that serious adolescent offenders may show unique patterns compared to other community or justice-involved adolescents. Further research with this population may contribute to information on the prevalence of primary and secondary psychopathy in serious adolescent offenders and inspire future directions for timing of and approaches to intervention.

Authors

• Elizabeth Sargent, Loyola University Chicago
  Presenting Author

• Jenny Phan, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author

• Noni K. Gaylord-Harden, Loyola University Chicago
  Non-Presenting Author