Commentary: Improving treatment for youth with callous‐unemotional traits through the intersection of basic and applied science – reflections on Dadds et al. (2014)

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107588/1/jcpp12274.pd

Observed fearlessness and positive parenting interact to predict childhood callous‐unemotional behaviors among low‐income boys

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136269/1/jcpp12666.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136269/2/jcpp12666_am.pd

Amygdala reactivity predicts adolescent antisocial behavior but not callous-unemotional traits.

Recent neuroimaging studies have suggested divergent relationships between antisocial behavior (AB) and callous-unemotional (CU) traits and amygdala reactivity to fearful and angry facial expressions in adolescents. However, little work has examined if these findings extend to dimensional measures of behavior in ethnically diverse, non-clinical samples, or if participant sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, and age moderate associations. We examined links between amygdala reactivity and dimensions of AB and CU traits in 220 Hispanic and non-Hispanic Caucasian adolescents (age 11-15; 49.5% female; 38.2% Hispanic), half of whom had a family history for depression and thus were at relatively elevated risk for late starting, emotionally dysregulated AB. We found that AB was significantly related to increased right amygdala reactivity to angry facial expressions independent of sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression. CU traits were not related to fear- or anger-related amygdala reactivity. The present study further demonstrates that AB is related to increased amygdala reactivity to interpersonal threat cues in adolescents, and that this relationship generalizes across sex, ethnicity, pubertal stage, age, and familial risk status for depression

Deviancy and Normative Training Processes in Experimental Groups of Delinquent and Nondelinquent Male Adolescents

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/96268/1/ab21456.pd

Intimate partner violence exposure predicts antisocial behavior via pro‐violence attitudes among males with elevated levels of cortisol

The present study tested whether attitudes toward violence mediate the association between intimate partner violence exposure and antisocial behavior across adolescence, and whether cortisol level moderates these pathways in an ethnically diverse sample of 190 boys from low‐income, urban families. Results suggest that a pathway from intimate partner violence exposure at age 12 to antisocial behavior at age 17 is explained by pro‐violence attitudes at age 15. Boys with greater exposure to intimate partner violence endorsed stronger pro‐violence attitudes, which predicted increases in antisocial behavior. Further, the pro‐violence attitudes to antisocial behavior pathway were stronger among boys with heightened versus dampened cortisol levels. Results suggest that violent attitudes are important for understanding the cognitive underpinnings of antisocial behavior following intimate partner violence exposure, particularly in youth with high cortisol levels. Implications for prevention and intervention are discussed with respect to targeting malleable child behavior linked to later antisocial behavior.Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146367/1/sode12313.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146367/2/sode12313_am.pd

Deflections from adolescent trajectories of antisocial behavior: contextual and neural moderators of antisocial behavior stability into emerging adulthood

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146467/1/jcpp12931_am.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/146467/2/jcpp12931.pd

Differential associations of early callous‐unemotional, oppositional, and ADHD behaviors: multiple domains within early‐starting conduct problems?

Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/111790/1/jcpp12326.pd

Maternal nicotine dependence is associated with longitudinal increases in child obesogenic eating behaviors

Peer Reviewedhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152014/1/ijpo12541.pdfhttps://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/152014/2/ijpo12541_am.pd

Examining the Factor Structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Short-Form Across Four Young Adult Samples

Psychopathy refers to a range of complex behaviors and personality traits, including callousness and antisocial behavior, typically studied in criminal populations. Recent studies have used self-reports to examine psychopathic traits among noncriminal samples. The goal of the current study was to examine the underlying factor structure of the Self-Report of Psychopathy Scale–Short Form (SRP-SF) across complementary samples and examine the impact of gender on factor structure. We examined the structure of the SRP-SF among 2,554 young adults from three undergraduate samples and a high-risk young adult sample. Using confirmatory factor analysis, a four-correlated factor model and a four-bifactor model showed good fit to the data. Evidence of weak invariance was found for both models across gender. These findings highlight that the SRP-SF is a useful measure of low-level psychopathic traits in noncriminal samples, although the underlying factor structure may not fully translate across men and women

Toward an Understanding of the Role of the Environment in the Development of Early Callous Behavior

Key to understanding the long‐term impact of social inequalities is identifying early behaviors that may signal higher risk for later poor psychosocial outcomes, such as psychopathology. A set of early‐emerging characteristics that may signal risk for later externalizing psychopathology is callous‐unemotional (CU) behavior. CU behavior predicts severe and chronic trajectories of externalizing behaviors in youth. However, much research on CU behavior has focused on late childhood and adolescence, with little attention paid to early childhood when preventative interventions may be most effective. In this article, we summarize our recent work showing that (a) CU behavior can be identified in early childhood using items from common behavior checklists, (b) CU behavior predicts worse outcomes across early childhood, (c) CU behavior exhibits a nomological network distinct from other early externalizing behaviors, and (d) malleable environmental factors, particularly parenting, may play a role in the development of early CU behaviors. We discuss the challenges of studying contextual contributors to the development of CU behavior in terms of gene–environment correlations and present initial results from work examining CU behavior in an adoption study in which gene–environment correlations are examined in early childhood. We find that parenting is a predictor of early CU behavior even in a sample in which parents are not genetically related to the children.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136006/1/jopy12221_am.pdfhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/136006/2/jopy12221.pd