Supervisors info:
Ε. Λαζαράτου, Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Γ. Κολαΐτης, Καθηγητής, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Ι. Γιαννοπούλου, Επίκουρη Καθηγήτρια, Ιατρική Σχολή, ΕΚΠΑ
Summary:
Introduction: Many children and adolescents diagnosed with Conduct Disorder (CD) also present with Callous-Unemotional traits (CU traits), characterized by lack of remorse and guilt, lack of empathy, little or no concern about performance and shallow or deficient affect. Despite the remarkable progress in the research field of CU traits worldwide, studies in Greece are limited. Objective: The aim of this study is to further examine CU traits in children and adolescents with CD, in order to understand their role in the appearance of aggressive behavior, as well as their relation to empathy, taking into account the gender dimension. Method: The sample of the present study consisted of 121 Greek children (65.3% girls), 9-17 years old (M=13.43, SD=2.63), who participated in the European FemNAT-CD study. Fifty-five (45.5%) of the participants were diagnosed with CD through the K-SADS-PL interview, while 66 were typically developing children (control group). CU traits, aggression and empathy were assessed through the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU; parent form), the Reactive-Proactive Aggression Questionnaire (RPQ; self report) and the Interpersonal Reactivity Index (IRI; self report) respectively. Results: Univariate analyses suggested that children with elevated levels of CU traits score higher in proactive aggression (U=189.5, p<.05) and lower in both cognitive (F= 15.36, p <.001) and affective (U=153.5, p<.05) empathy. No significant differences were found regarding cognitive empathy between the control group and children with low CU traits. Hierarchical regression analysis indicated that CU traits (β=.317, p<.05) and, in a lesser extent, emotional empathy (β=-.208, p<.09) are uniquely associated with proactive aggression, explaining 14.4% of the variance, along with gender, cognitive empathy and group type (R2=.144, F(2,113)= 3.710, p<.01). Gender had no significant effect in either function of aggression. Conclusions: The findings suggest that CU traits are differentially associated with proactive and reactive aggression, as well as cognitive and emotional empathy, thus providing further support to the hypothesis that young people with CD are a heterogeneous group with distinct behavioral, cognitive and emotional deficits.
Keywords:
Conduct disorder (CD), Callous unemotional traits (CU traits), Aggression, Empathy
