Citation

Fite PJ, Greening L, Stoppelbein L. Behav. Sci. Law 2008; 26(2): 239-248.

Affiliation

Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior, Universityof Mississippi Medical Center, 2500 North State Street, Jackson, MS 39216, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2008, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/bsl.803

PMID

18344170

Abstract

Parenting stress was examined as a correlate of psychopathic traits, specifically narcissism, callous/unemotional traits, and impulsivity, among school-aged children while controlling for the variance explained by aggressive behavior. Participants included 212 children ranging from 6 to 12 years of age (M = 8.3 years) who were admitted to an acute child psychiatric inpatient unit for treatment. Parents completed standardized measures of aggression (Child Behavior Checklist; CBCL), psychopathic traits (Antisocial Process Screening Device; APSD), and parenting stress (Parenting Stress Index; PSI) at the time of the child's admission. Multiple regression analyses revealed that high levels of the PSI dimension attachment difficulties were associated with high levels of narcissism and callous/unemotional traits among the children while statistically controlling for aggression. The PSI dimension role restriction was also found to be negatively related to narcissism. These findings suggest that specific aspects of parenting stress may be related to child psychopathic traits and might aid with conceptualizing and developing treatment approaches for childhood behavior problems.

Language: en