scholarly journals Emotional reactivity and the association between psychopathy-linked narcissism and aggression in detained adolescent boys

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 473-485 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luna C. Muñoz Centifanti ◽  
Eva R. Kimonis ◽  
Paul J. Frick ◽  
Katherine J. Aucoin

AbstractDifferent patterns of emotional reactivity characterize proactive and reactive functions of aggressive behavior, and theory also suggests a link of both types with narcissism. How people with narcissistic traits respond emotionally to competitive scenarios could influence their aggressiveness. Participants were 85 adolescent boys from a detention center. Several indices of emotional functioning were assessed, including attentional bias to negative emotional stimuli and psychophysiological responding. In addition, we included self-report and laboratory measures of aggression and measures of psychopathy-linked narcissism, callous–unemotional traits, and impulsivity. Psychopathy-linked narcissism was uniquely related to unprovoked aggression (i.e., proactive aggression) and to heightened attention to pictures depicting others’ distress. Compared with those scoring low on narcissism, those high on narcissism, who were the least physiologically reactive group, evinced greater proactive aggression, whereas those showing a pattern of coactivation (i.e., sympathetic and parasympathetic autonomic reactivity) evinced greater reactive aggression. Results are consistent with descriptions of narcissistic individuals as being hypervigilant to negative cues and exhibiting poor emotion regulation. These characteristics may lead to aggressive and violent behavior aimed at maintaining dominance over others.

2018 ◽  
Vol 6 (5) ◽  
pp. 671-684 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily L. Robertson ◽  
Paul J. Frick ◽  
James V. Ray ◽  
Laura C. Thornton ◽  
Tina D. Wall Myers ◽  
...  

Previous research has reported that elevations on both callous-unemotional (CU) traits and anxiety (measured as trait worry) among adolescents are associated with a particularly severe pattern of aggressive behavior. In the current study, we tested whether elevated trait worry would add only to the prediction of less severe and reactive aggression assessed by self-report but not to more severe violence, proactive aggression, and official records of violent arrests. First-time male juvenile offenders ( N = 1,216) were assessed at 6-month intervals for 30 months. Contrary to predictions, our analyses found both CU traits and worry independently predicted self-reported violent offenses (regardless of violence severity) and aggression (both proactive and reactive) across 30 months after their first arrest. However, when using arrest records, only CU traits were associated with violent offenses. This suggests that the additive effects of anxiety and worry in predicting risk for later violence may be limited to self-report.


Assessment ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 27 (7) ◽  
pp. 1668-1680 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meng-Cheng Wang ◽  
Yiyun Shou ◽  
Jinghui Liang ◽  
Hongyu Lai ◽  
Hong Zeng ◽  
...  

The present study examined the factor structure and measurement invariance of the shortened versions of the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits (ICU) with data from multiple informants. Five short versions of the ICU proposed in previous studies were tested and compared through confirmatory factor analysis. The measurement invariance across different informants (i.e., self-report, parent-report, and teacher-report) and longitudinal measurement invariance for the resulting best-fitting model were tested thoroughly. Results indicated that a shortened form that consists of 11 items (ICU-11) to assess callousness and uncaring factors had excellent overall fit. Moreover, the ICU-11 was invariant across informant and occasions. However, the ICU-11 was not without limitations; the internal consistency α for the uncaring factor with self-report scores was marginal. In conclusion, our findings suggest that the ICU-11 was an excellent fit for our data and displayed measurement invariance across informants and over time. The ICU-11 may be a promising assessment tool that could be used in research to assess callous–uncaring traits in Chinese children.


2014 ◽  
Vol 220 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 426-432 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriele Masi ◽  
Annarita Milone ◽  
Simone Pisano ◽  
Francesca Lenzi ◽  
Pietro Muratori ◽  
...  

2012 ◽  
Vol 40 (7) ◽  
pp. 1099-1110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brian T. Wymbs ◽  
Carolyn A. McCarty ◽  
Kevin M. King ◽  
Elizabeth McCauley ◽  
Ann Vander Stoep ◽  
...  

Assessment ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 107319112110478
Author(s):  
Tatiana M. Matlasz ◽  
Paul J. Frick ◽  
Julia E. Clark

The current study compared the validity of self-, parent-, and teacher-report versions of the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits (ICU), a widely used measure of callous–unemotional (CU) traits, at several different ages. Participants ( N = 236, 60.6% girls) were children in Grades 3, 6, and 8 ( Mage = 11.55, SD = 2.23) from a public school system in the southern United States. We tested the association of all three ICU versions with several validators: parent- and teacher-reported conduct problems, peer nominations of characteristics associated with CU traits, and sociometric peer nominations of social preference. Results revealed an interaction between the ICU version and grade in the overall level of CU traits reported, with teacher-report leading to the highest ratings in sixth grade and being higher than parent-report in third grade. Furthermore, the validity of the different versions of the ICU varied somewhat across grades. Specifically, findings support the validity of both teacher- and self-report in third grade, but self-report was the only version to show strong validity in the eighth grade.


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