Citation

Kimonis ER, Frick PJ, Muñoz LC, Aucoin KJ. Dev. Psychopathol. 2008; 20(2): 569-589.

Affiliation

Institute for Behavioral Sciences and the Law, 750 SE 3rd Avenue, Suite 204, Fort Lauderdale, FL 33316, USA. ekimonis@forensic-experts.net

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, Cambridge University Press)

DOI

10.1017/S095457940800028X

PMID

18423095

Abstract

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits in antisocial youth have been associated with deficits in the processing of emotionally distressing stimuli in a number of past studies. In the current study, we investigated moderators of this association in a sample of 88 ethnically diverse detained boys (mean age = 15.57, SD = 1.28). Overall, emotional processing of distressing stimuli using a dot-probe task was not related to CU traits and there was no moderating effect of ethnicity. However, CU traits were related to deficits in emotional processing in youth high on aggression and youth high on exposure to community violence. Further, youth high on CU traits but with enhanced orienting to distressing stimuli had stronger histories of abuse, supporting the possibility that there may be environmentally influenced pathways in the development of these traits.

Language: en