Callous-Unemotional Traits, Harm-Effect Moral Reasoning, and Bullying Among Swedish Children

Concurrent Associations Between Callous-Unemotional Traits, Moral Disengagement, and Bullying Perpetration in Adolescence

The aim of the current study was twofold. The first aim was to examine whether callous-unemotional (CU) traits are directly related to moral disengagement and bullying perpetration as well as whether CU traits are indirectly related to bullying perpetration mediated by moral disengagement among adolescents. The second aim was to examine whether the three distinct dimensions of CU-callousness, uncaringness, and unemotionality-are directly related to moral disengagement and bullying perpetration, as well as whether they are indirectly related to bullying perpetration mediated by moral disengagement among adolescents. Self-report survey data from 706 adolescents (Mage = 14.5) from 20 schools in Sweden were gathered and analyzed using structural equation modeling. The findings suggest that CU traits were positively and directly linked to bullying perpetration, but also indirectly mediated by moral disengagement. Similarly, callousness and uncaringness showed direct and indirect associations with bullying perpetration, whereas unemotionality was found to be only indirectly associated with bullying perpetration. Unemotionality had the weakest connection to moral disengagement and was not directly related to bullying perpetration, whereas callousness, in particular, but also uncaringness, had stronger connections to moral disengagement and bullying perpetration. In sum, the findings underscore the importance of explicitly integrating moral considerations into endeavors aimed at preventing school bullying among adolescents.

Morality in middle childhood: the role of callous-unemotional traits and emotion regulation skills

BACKGROUND

The development of morality is vital for fostering prosocial behavior and enhancing both individual and societal well-being. Clarifying what contextual and individual factors play a role in moral processes during childhood can contribute to our understanding of the development of morality. Given the previous acknowledgment of importance, yet lack of existing empirical findings, the study focused on the significance of callous-unemotional traits (i.e., an affective-interpersonal personality trait, related to psychopathy in adulthood) and emotion regulation (i.e., an essential part of socio-emotional competence, and a transdiagnostic factor in the development of psychopathology) for moral emotions and cognitions during middle childhood. The concrete aim was to examine direct and indirect effects of callous-unemotional trait dimensions (callousness, uncaring, unemotionality) onto immoral emotional attribution (i.e., feeling good after immoral decisions) and admissibility of immoral actions (i.e., evaluating immoral actions as being okay) via emotion regulation skills.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted with 194 children attending Grades 1 to 4, and their primary caregivers. The children completed the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits and caregivers completed the Emotion Regulation Checklist. The children were also presented with a set of moral dilemma vignettes, and asked about the emotions of protagonists who acted immoral, and the admissibility of their actions.

RESULTS

Path-model analysis revealed (1) negative direct effects of emotion regulation skills onto immoral emotional attribution and admissibility of immoral actions, (2) positive direct effects of the dimensions callousness and uncaring onto immoral emotional attribution and admissibility of immoral actions, and (3) negative direct effects of dimensions callousness and uncaring onto emotion regulation skills. Indirect effects, indicating that emotion regulation skills mediate the association between the callous-unemotional trait dimensions and morality, were also found.

CONCLUSION

The findings address a knowledge gap and indicate that emotion regulation skills, callousness, and uncaring play an important role in morality in middle childhood and should be included in frameworks of moral decision-making and development.

CONSISTENCY AND VALIDITY OF THE INVENTORY OF CALLOUS- UNEMOTIONAL TRAITS IN A MULTI-CENTRIC COMMUNITY SAMPLE

The purpose of this research was to validate the Inventory of Callous Unemotional Traits in a multi-centric community sample of Colombian children and adolescents aged between 9 and 18 years. An adapted version to the Colombian Spanish was applied to 903 school students without significant medical background (neurotypical behavior), and 118 with a clinical history of internalizing or externalizing conditions. A group of specialized judges approved the content validity of the instrument in terms of relevance and intelligibility, but concept factorial validity was low for the uncaring and callousness factors. Exploratory factor analysis confirmed the existence of three dimensions (uncaring, unemotional, and callousness), but only 17 out of 24 items demonstrated adequate psychometric statistics. The consistency for the 17-item Colombian adaptation was acceptable (α = .78). Goodness-of-fit calculated through confirmatory analysis was satisfactory for a bifactor structure (model C). Neurotypical participants showed lower total scores in comparison to the other groups. Participants with internalizing conditions had higher unemotional traits, while those with externalizing behaviors more commonly presented uncaring behaviors. This study is important for psychopathy research in Colombia as provides a validated adaption of the most used instrument to assess callous-unemotional traits in children and adolescents.

Moral reasoning, emotion understanding, and callous-unemotional traits in early-to-middle childhood

Relatively little is known about features of moral reasoning among young children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., lack of guilt and empathy). This study tested associations between CU traits and emotion attributions (i.e., identification of others' emotional states) and justifications (i.e., explanations for those emotional states), across social scenarios involving discreet versus salient distress cues. The participants were boys aged 6-to-10 years (N = 50; Mage  = 7 years 7 months), who were interviewed about 12 hypothetical scenarios (eight with discreet and four with salient distress cues). Regression models indicated that CU traits, in interaction with high levels of antisocial behaviour, were associated with reduced emotion attributions of fear in discreet but not salient immoral scenarios. Higher CU traits were also associated with reduced justifications referencing others' welfare in discreet scenarios, and increased references to action-orientated justifications in salient scenarios. These findings suggest that CU traits are associated with early moral reasoning impairments and that salience of distress may be important to these processes.

Emotional processing in bullying: an event-related potential study

Bullying is a subtype of violence that leads to maladaptive behaviors and emotional responses, with implications for social competence, emotions, and empathy. The present study compared the time course of emotional processing in children who were involved in the dynamics of bullying (i.e., as victims, bullies, and observers) by evaluating event-related potentials [early posterior negativity and late positive potential (LPP)] in different brain regions during a passive visualization task that involved positive, neutral, and negative social pictures. High-density electroencephalograms were recorded in 45 children, 8-12 years old (M = 9.5 years, SD = 1.3), while they observed emotional and neutral social pictures that we selected from the International Affective Picture System. Late positive potential had higher amplitudes in the victim group, especially in posterior and anterior regions. In the central region, LPP was greater toward neutral social pictures in bullying victims. The greater amplitude of LPP in victims was observed during and after the stimulus. The results showed a consistent response with a higher intensity in response to emotional stimuli in the victim group, suggesting a tendency toward hypervigilance that could interfere with emotional regulation.

Intention to Stop Bullying following a Condemning, Empathy-Raising, or Combined Message from a Teacher – Do Students’ Empathy and Callous-Unemotional Traits Matter?

Knowing which intervention strategies work best and for which student is essential for teachers when they intervene in cases of bullying. The effects of teachers’ (1) condemning, (2) empathy-raising, and (3) combined (including elements of both) messages on students’ intention to stop bullying were tested in a between-subject experimental design. A total of 277 seventh grade students (Mage = 12.93, SD = 0.49; 47% female) were asked to imagine they had bullied a peer and were invited to a discussion with a teacher. They saw a video vignette with one of the above messages. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that students’ intention to stop bullying was highest among those who saw the combined message. Callous-unemotional traits were negatively, and affective and cognitive empathy positively associated with intention to stop bullying. Students’ level of cognitive empathy moderated the relative effect of the condemning message on intention to stop bullying. At low levels of cognitive empathy, the condemning message was the least effective, whereas among those with high cognitive empathy, all messages were equally likely to lead to intention to stop bullying. Together, the findings suggest that for educators intervening in bullying among adolescents, an approach involving both condemning and empathy-raising messages is the ‘best bet’, most likely to lead to intention to stop bullying.

Callous-unemotional Traits, moralische Identität und Bullying im Jugendalter

Zusammenfassung. Theoretischer Hintergrund: Die Rolle der Moral im Kontext pro- und antisozialer Verhaltensweisen wird sowohl national als auch international diskutiert. Im Zusammenhang mit antisozialen Verhaltensweisen von Jugendlichen werden zudem vermehrt Callous-unemotional Traits betrachtet. Fragestellung: Die vorliegende Studie untersucht den Zusammenhang zwischen CU-Traits, der moralischen Identität und Bullying. Methode: Insgesamt bearbeiteten N = 749 Jugendliche einen Fragebogenkatalog. SPSS und AMOS wurden zur Analyse der vorliegenden Daten genutzt. Ergebnisse: Die Ergebnisse zeigen direkte Effekte von Callousness, Uncaring und der moralischen Identität auf Bullying. Die Skalen Uncaring und Callousness zeigen einen Zusammenhang mit moralischer Identität und Bullying. Diskussion und Schlussfolgerung: Die Ergebnisse deuten an, dass die moralische Identität und die damit einhergehende moralische Entwicklung wichtige Prädiktoren für das Verhalten von Jugendlichen sind.

INCA-M: Mexican Adaptation of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Antisocial Behavior

Callous-unemotional traits are considered to be precursors of psychopathy, and are related to behaviors such as aggression, delinquency, antisocial behavior, and bullying in adolescents. For this reason, it is important to study these traits in childhood and adolescence with appropriate and reliable instruments. The aim of the current study is to develop a Mexican adaptation of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Antisocial Behavior (INCA) because few questionnaires in Spanish assess these traits, and even fewer have been validated for the Mexican population. The INCA questionnaire, developed in Spain, assesses the same three factors as the ICU questionnaire (unemotional, callousness, and uncaring), and it includes an additional factor of antisocial behavior with items on challenging authority and breaking social rules. It controls two response biases: social desirability and acquiescence. We administered the Mexican adaptation, named INCA-M, to 699 adolescents aged between 12 and 18 years old. Factor analysis yielded three dimensions, because most of the items referring to uncaring and antisocial behavior loaded on a common factor, which can be explained by cultural differences. We decided to remove these items of antisocial behavior so as to maintain the same three factors assessed by the ICU questionnaire. The results suggest that the INCA-M has good psychometric properties, with high factor simplicity and good reliability. Moreover, we found the expected correlations with impulsivity and the Big Five subscales, and also with the equivalent subscales assessed by the ICU questionnaire.

Does the Interplay of Callous-Unemotional Traits and Moral Disengagement Underpin Disruptive Behavior? A Systematic Review

Disruptive behavior could represent an (un)moral behavioral component of multi-dimensional construct of morality that includes affective and cognitive aspects. Thus, it is pivotal to investigate their interplay between affective and cognitive processes the better to understand how to intervene to contrast disruptive behavior and its antisocial outcomes. The present review has examined the relationship between affective and cognitive processes implied in moral functioning by focusing on callous-unemotional traits (CU) and moral disengagement. Starting from 1005 records identified by PsycINFO, Pubmed, and Pubpsych, only 13 studies have been selected. These studies show different theoretical approaches and methodologies and put in evidence the nuances of possible interactions of CU and moral disengagement during adolescence based on different research field. Overall, most of the scholars seem to conclude that different interplay can be plausible, suggesting that it is likely that during the adolescence the influence of moral disengagement and CU is reciprocal and longitudinal. Specifically, in adolescents with Disruptive Behavior Disorders CU and moral disengagement can move together in organizing and becoming chronic of antisocial affective-cognitive system, and in particular moral disengagement may give a free way to engage in disruptive behavior.

Why do children and adolescents bully their peers? A critical review of key theoretical frameworks

Bullying is a significant public health problem for children and adolescents worldwide. Evidence suggests that both being bullied (bullying victimisation) and bullying others (bullying perpetration) are associated with concurrent and future mental health problems. The onset and course of bullying perpetration are influenced by individual as well as systemic factors. Identifying effective solutions to address bullying requires a fundamental understanding of why it occurs. Drawing from multi-disciplinary domains, this review provides a summary and synthesis of the key theoretical frameworks applied to understanding and intervening on the issue of bullying. A number of explanatory models have been used to elucidate the dynamics of bullying, and broadly these correspond with either system (e.g., social-ecological, family systems, peer-group socialisation) or individual-level (e.g., developmental psychopathology, genetic, resource control, social-cognitive) frameworks. Each theory adds a unique perspective; however, no single framework comprehensively explains why bullying occurs. This review demonstrates that the integration of theoretical perspectives achieves a more nuanced understanding of bullying which is necessary for strengthening evidence-based interventions. Future progress requires researchers to integrate both the systems and individual-level theoretical frameworks to further improve current interventions. More effective intervention across different systems as well as tailoring interventions to the specific needs of the individuals directly involved in bullying will reduce exposure to a key risk factor for mental health problems.

Associations between callous-unemotional traits and various types of involvement in school bullying among adolescents in Taiwan

PURPOSE

This study examined associations between callous-unemotional (CU) traits and involvement in school bullying among 613 Taiwanese adolescents.

METHODS

CU traits were determined using the self-reported Chinese versions of the Inventory of Callous and Unemotional Traits (C-ICUT) and the School Bullying Experience Questionnaire (C-SBEQ). The study used logistic regression analysis to assess associations between CU traits and types of involvement in school bullying, with controls for the effect of age, sex, and residential background.

RESULTS

Higher levels of the callous trait were positively associated with greater risk of being a victim of physical bullying and belongings snatch, or a perpetrator of verbal, relational and physical bullying and belongings snatch. Higher levels of the unemotional trait were positively associated with greater risk of being a victim of verbal and relational bullying. The uncaring trait had no significant associations with any type of bullying involvement.

CONCLUSION

The role played by CU traits should, therefore, be examined when developing programs to detect and prevent school bullying.