Some Concerns about Antisocial Behavior in Children and Adolescents: Psychopathy and Callous-Unemotional Traits

The article presents a review of modern international concepts and empirical researches of a set of affective-related and personality traits, which is regarded as important for understanding the aetiology and psychological mechanisms of the most aggressive and poorly corrigible patterns of antisocial behavior. Conceptualized as psychopathy and closely related to antisocial personality disorder, though not equivalent to it, this set of traits includes such characteristics as lack of empathy, callousness, poor behavioral control, irresponsibility, impulsivity, etc. Investigation of psychopathy in children and adolescents is relevant in view of the growing body of data on early manifestation of severe conduct problems. Studies of large heterogeneous group of children and adolescents with antisocial behavior have shown that focusing on affective and interpersonal characteristics allows to single out a group of youths that demonstrate particularly aggressive patterns of antisocial behavior that are paired with certain emotional deficits. Implementing such approach to studying severe antisocial behavior in children and adolescents has led to extending this construct of psychopathy to youths. The review also discusses the latest measures of psychopathy employed in international clinical science, central lines of research of child and adolescent psychopathy, as well as perspectives of studying psychopathy in Russia.