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Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Information Processing: Multiple Risk-Factor Models for Understanding Aggressive Behavior in Antisocial Youth

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Law and Human Behavior

Abstract

This study examined multiple risk factor models of links among callous-unemotional traits, aggression beliefs, social information processing, impulsivity, and aggressive behavior in a sample of 150 antisocial adolescents. Consistent with past research, results indicated that beliefs legitimizing aggression predicted social information processing biases and that social information processing biases mediated the effect of beliefs on aggressive behavior. Callous-unemotional traits accounted for unique variance in aggression above and beyond effects of more established risk factors of early onset of antisocial behavior, social information processing, and impulsivity. These findings add to recent research showing that callous-unemotional traits are a unique risk factor associated with aggression and criminal offending and suggest that targeting both affective and cognitive vulnerabilities may enhance clinical intervention with antisocial youth.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded in part by a grant from Child and Adolescent Psychology Training and Research Foundation, by financial support from University of Vermont Dean’s Faculty Fund, and Linda Brittain, awarded to the first author. The authors thank Judith Christensen and detention center staff and teachers for their generous support and their time, and Paul Frick, Rex Forehand, Annie Murray-Close, and Heather Bouchey for helpful comments on an earlier draft of this article.

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  1. Department of Psychology, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Timothy R. Stickle

  2. University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA

    Neil M. Kirkpatrick & Lauren N. Brush

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  1. Timothy R. Stickle
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Correspondence to Timothy R. Stickle.

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Stickle, T.R., Kirkpatrick, N.M. & Brush, L.N. Callous-Unemotional Traits and Social Information Processing: Multiple Risk-Factor Models for Understanding Aggressive Behavior in Antisocial Youth. Law Hum Behav 33, 515–529 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10979-008-9171-7

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