Title
Callous-unemotional traits and the emotional processing of distress cues in detained boys: Testing the moderating role of aggression, exposure to community violence, and histories of abuse
Publication Date
2008
Publication Details
Kimonis, E. R, Frick, P. J, Munoz, L. C & Aucoin, KJ. (2008). Callous-unemotional traits and the emotional processing of distress cues in detained boys: Testing the moderating role of aggression, exposure to community violence, and histories of abuse. Development and Psychopathology, 569-589. United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press.
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.
School/Institute
Institute for Learning Sciences and Teacher Education
Document Type
Journal Article
Access Rights
ERA Access