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The Moderating Role of Anxiety in the Associations of Callous-Unemotional Traits with Self-Report and Laboratory Measures of Affective and Cognitive Empathy

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Abstract

In a sample of detained male adolescents (n = 107; Mean age = 15.50; SD = 1.30), we tested whether anxiety moderated the association of CU traits with self-report and computerized measures of affective (emotional reactivity) and cognitive (affective facial recognition and Theory of Mind [ToM]) empathy. Hierarchical regression analyses revealed that CU traits were negatively associated with self-reports of affective empathy and this association was not moderated by level of anxiety. Significant interactions revealed that CU traits were negatively associated with cognitive empathy (self-report) only at high levels of anxiety, whereas CU traits were positively associated with cognitive empathy on the ToM task only at low levels of anxiety. CU traits were also associated with greater fear recognition accuracy at low levels of anxiety. Implications for understanding and treating different variants of CU traits (i.e., primary and secondary) are discussed.

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Acknowledgments

We thank Julia Clark, Katie Gottlieb, Katherine Lau, Greg Fassnacht, and Molly Miller for their help with data collection. We are grateful to adolescents who participated in our study.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Sand Ridge Secure Treatment Center, 301 Troy Drive, Bld 14, Madison, WI, 14, USA

    Rachel E. Kahn

  2. Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA

    Paul J. Frick

  3. Learning Sciences Institute of Australia, Australian Catholic University, Melbourne, VIC, Australia

    Paul J. Frick

  4. Department of Psychology, University of New Orleans, New Orleans, LA, USA

    Farrah N. Golmaryami

  5. Department of Psychology, Iowa State University, Ames, IA, USA

    Monica A. Marsee

Authors
  1. Rachel E. Kahn
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  2. Paul J. Frick
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  3. Farrah N. Golmaryami
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  4. Monica A. Marsee
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Correspondence to Rachel E. Kahn.

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Ethical Approval

All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study.

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Kahn, R.E., Frick, P.J., Golmaryami, F.N. et al. The Moderating Role of Anxiety in the Associations of Callous-Unemotional Traits with Self-Report and Laboratory Measures of Affective and Cognitive Empathy. J Abnorm Child Psychol 45, 583–596 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-016-0179-z

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