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Research Review: The importance of callous‐unemotional traits for developmental models of aggressive and antisocial behavior
Author(s) -
Frick Paul J.,
White Stuart F.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of child psychology and psychiatry
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.652
H-Index - 211
eISSN - 1469-7610
pISSN - 0021-9630
DOI - 10.1111/j.1469-7610.2007.01862.x
Subject(s) - psychology , empathy , antisocial personality disorder , conduct disorder , psychopathy , developmental psychology , aggression , clinical psychology , big five personality traits , poison control , injury prevention , personality , psychiatry , social psychology , medicine , environmental health
The current paper reviews research suggesting that the presence of a callous and unemotional interpersonal style designates an important subgroup of antisocial and aggressive youth. Specifically, callous‐unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt, absence of empathy, callous use of others) seem to be relatively stable across childhood and adolescence and they designate a group of youth with a particularly severe, aggressive, and stable pattern of antisocial behavior. Further, antisocial youth with CU traits show a number of distinct emotional, cognitive, and personality characteristics compared to other antisocial youth. These characteristics of youth with CU traits have important implications for causal models of antisocial and aggressive behavior, for methods used to study antisocial youth, and for assessing and treating antisocial and aggressive behavior in children and adolescents.