by Silvana Kaouar
What if we could not only identify the children most at risk of developing adult psychopathy, but also more reliably predict individuals at risk of a more severe psychosocial profile? Such early detection would thus make room for critical early intervention based on individual treatment needs. The present study sought to examine mothers’ thoughts and feelings towards their child with severe conduct problems and varying levels of Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits, to identify relevant treatment targets for this at-risk population of children.
CU traits in childhood are considered a developmental precursor to adult psychopathy. CU traits encompass the affective dimension of psychopathy, and include a lack of guilt/remorse for one’s actions, callous lack of empathy for others, shallow and manipulative use of emotions, and uncaring attitudes towards important activities. Thus far the literature has mainly focused on the “primary” variant of CU traits (i.e., individuals with elevated CU traits and low levels of internalizing problems). However, the more recently identified “secondary” CU variant (i.e., individuals with elevated CU traits and co-occurring internalizing problems) foreshadows a far more severe psychosocial profile, including more frequent and severe externalizing problems that are reactive in nature, delinquency, violent offenses across the lifespan, and more violence while incarcerated than individuals classified as primary CU variants.
The identification of primary and secondary CU variants has been carried-out in samples of children as young as 3-years-old. Identifying the parenting factors that are differentially related to these distinct groups of young children with severe conduct problems and varying levels of CU traits may allow us to directly refine treatment targets for this population of children, which has critical implications for reducing the development of CU traits. Such early intervention is also crucial to minimizing or preventing the development of adult psychopathy in these children, and the negative impact of psychopathy on the families and victims of psychopathic individuals.
The present study hence sought to examine mothers’ thoughts and feelings towards their child with severe conduct problems and varying levels of CU traits, to glean insight into their parenting experiences, and the parenting factors relevant to refining treatment targets for this at-risk population of children.
The current study included mothers of 135 young children (aged 2 to 7 years) referred to specialty clinics for the treatment of conduct problems. Mothers completed pre-treatment measures of parenting and rated their child’s levels of conduct problems, internalizing problems, and CU traits. Mothers also completed a five-minute speech sample task, where they were asked to sit alone in a room and speak for five minutes about what kind of a person their child is, and how the two of them get along together.
All speech samples were qualitatively coded using the Family Affective Attitude Rating Scale (Bullock et al., 2005), to identify mothers’ warm/positive and harsh/negative thoughts and feelings towards their child across the following 8 domains: positive regarding traits/personality of child; assumes positive intentions of child; statements of love/care toward child; critical of traits/personality of child; negative relationship with child including signs of anger, resentment, and contempt; assumes negative intentions of child; and overall warmth and criticism.
Next, children were classified into the following groups based on their levels of CU traits and internalizing problems: a conduct problem only group (i.e., ‘low CU group’; n=59), primary CU variant group (n=38), and secondary CU variant group (n=38). We ran planned comparisons to compare mothers’ thoughts and feelings towards their child between these three clinical groups of children.
Planned comparisons revealed three key group differences in mothers’ thoughts and feelings: (1) mothers of children classified as secondary CU variants (high CU/high internalizing) reported fewer overall warm attributions toward their child, compared with low CU children, (2) mothers of children classified as secondary CU variants reported a more negative dyadic relationship with their child relative to primary CU variants (high CU/low internalizing), and (3) mothers of primary CU variants attributed fewer good and altruistic intentions towards others in their child, relative to low-CU children.
These findings reveal that mothers’ thoughts and feelings about their child differ based on their child’s distinct clinical profile with respect to conduct problems and CU traits. Identifying these nuanced parenting factors allows us to refine treatment targets for these young groups of children, by tailoring treatment to address the distinct parenting factors relevant to their conduct problems and CU traits. Such early intervention is aimed at not only minimizing the impact of current CU behaviors on parents, but at preventing the development of adult psychopathy in these children, and the negative impact of psychopathy on the families and victims of psychopathic individuals.
