Introduction. Abnormal emotional experience has long been considered a hallmark of psychopathy.1 One way psychopathic emotional deficits manifest is as an impaired ability to recognize the emotions of others, particularly the negatively valenced emotions of fear and sadness.2 Although ‘psychopathic’ is not a label applied to children, callous-unemotional (CU) traits in childhood represent the core emotional deficit of adult psychopathy.3 Children with high levels of CU traits also appear to have impaired recognition of emotions2 similar to those seen in adult psychopaths. However, no studies to date have investigated the genetic and environmental contributions to the relationship between CU traits and emotion recognition in children.
Methods. Data were drawn from two community-based twin samples of 9-20 year olds. The combined analytic sample consisted of 1,214 individuals (607 twin pairs; 54.0% female, mean age = 14.1 years). CU traits were examined via subscale scores (callous-uncaring and unemotional) on the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits. Emotion recognition was examined via participant’s unbiased hit-rate (UBHR) on the Facial Expression Labeling Task (FELT). Pearson’s product-moment correlations were used to examine the phenotypic relationships between ICU subscales and UBHR for the emotions of anger, happiness, sadness, fear, surprise, and disgust. Furthermore, etiologic associations were examined via biometrical structural equation modeling where the genetic, common environmental, and unique environmental correlations between phenotypes were computed. Lastly, the proportion of the phenotypic association attributable to these etiologic sources was calculated. All analyses were performed in R using OpenMx.
Results. The callous-uncaring subscale was modestly but significantly negatively correlated with recognition of happiness (r = -0.06, p ≤ .01), sadness (r = -0.12, p ≤ .001), fear (r = -0.08, p ≤ .05), surprise (r = -0.07, p ≤ .05), and disgust (r = -0.10, p ≤ .01). Conversely, the unemotional subscale was significantly positively correlated with recognition of surprise (r = 0.07, p ≤ .05) and disgust (r = 0.10, p ≤ .01). There were no significant genetic correlations between the unemotional subscale and any FELT emotion. However, there were significant genetic correlations between the callous-uncaring ICU dimension and UBHR for sadness (rA = -0.41, p ≤ 0.05), and fear (rA = -0.33, p ≤ 0.05). Transformation of these genetic correlations revealed that the phenotypic correlation between callous-uncaring and the recognition of sadness and fear are due entirely to genetic effects. There were no significant common or unique environmental correlations between either ICU subscale and any FELT emotion.
Discussion. The callous-uncaring ICU subscale, a core component of adult psychopathy, is associated with an overall impaired ability to recognize emotions. However, the genetic relationship underpinning this relationship is specific to the emotions of fear and sadness, which are the most common emotion recognition deficits seen in adult psychopaths.
References
- Cleckley, H. M. (1941). The mask of sanity. St. Louis, MO: Mosby.
- Blair, R. J. (2013). The neurobiology of psychopathic traits in youth. Nature Reviews Neuroscience, 14, 786-799.
- Fowles, D. C., & Dindo, L. (2009). Temperament and psychopathy: A dual-pathway model. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 18, 179-183.
Developmental Disorders (e.g. ADHD) , Psychopathology (e.g., Internalizing, Externalizing, Psychosis)
