Kemp Emily C, Clark Julia E, Matlasz Tatiana M, Frick Paul J
Department of Psychology, Louisiana State University, Baton Rouge, LA, USA.
Department of Psychiatry, University of California, 8980 Villa La Jolla Dr, La Jolla, CA, 92037, USA.
Prev Sci. 2024 Nov 7. doi: 10.1007/s11121-024-01746-y.
Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with severe conduct problems (CP) in youth. Causal theories for CU traits focus on emotion processing deficits that interfere with empathy development. However, though CU traits are consistently associated with deficits in affective empathy (i.e., emotional reactivity), the association between CU traits and cognitive empathy, which requires accurate emotion recognition, is less clear. We hypothesize that past inconsistencies in the associations between CU traits and emotion recognition may be due to interactions with conduct problems (CP) and age. To test this, a sample (N = 258) of school children in the 3rd, 6th, and 8th grades completed a computer task that assessed facial expression recognition, while caregivers and teachers reported on CU traits and CP. Results from hierarchical linear regression analyses indicated significant interactions between CU traits and CP in their associations with overall emotion recognition and with recognition of fearful and sad faces. In each case, CP showed a non-significant negative association with emotion recognition at high levels of CU traits. However, for fear and sadness recognition, CP was positively associated with accuracy at low levels of CU traits. Significant interactions between CU traits and age also emerged for recognition of fear and sadness, such that there were non-significant negative associations between CU traits and recognition accuracy in younger children, but significant positive associations in 8th grade students. These results have multiple implications as they help to clarify past inconsistencies on the association between CU traits and emotion recognition and can aid in the development of more effective interventions to prevent or treat conduct problems in young children.
冷酷无情（CU）特质与青少年的严重行为问题（CP）相关。关于CU特质的因果理论聚焦于干扰同理心发展的情绪加工缺陷。然而，尽管CU特质一直与情感同理心（即情绪反应性）的缺陷相关，但CU特质与需要准确情绪识别的认知同理心之间的关联尚不清楚。我们假设，过去CU特质与情绪识别之间关联的不一致可能是由于与行为问题（CP）和年龄的相互作用。为了验证这一点，一个由三年级、六年级和八年级学童组成的样本（N = 258）完成了一项评估面部表情识别的计算机任务，同时照顾者和教师报告了CU特质和CP情况。分层线性回归分析结果表明，CU特质和CP在与整体情绪识别以及与恐惧和悲伤面孔识别的关联中存在显著交互作用。在每种情况下，在高水平CU特质时，CP与情绪识别呈不显著的负相关。然而，对于恐惧和悲伤识别，在低水平CU特质时，CP与准确性呈正相关。在恐惧和悲伤识别方面，CU特质和年龄之间也出现了显著交互作用，即年幼孩子中CU特质与识别准确性之间存在不显著的负相关，但在八年级学生中存在显著正相关。这些结果具有多重意义，因为它们有助于澄清过去关于CU特质与情绪识别之间关联的不一致情况，并有助于开发更有效的干预措施来预防或治疗幼儿的行为问题。
