Abstract
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.
Highlights
Psychopathy is a personality construct characterized by the manipulation of others for personal gain, a lack of empathy, and a lack of guilt and remorse (Viding et al, 2014; Duran-Bonavila et al, 2017)
Parallel analysis suggested that the data had four content factors, so we carried out an exploratory factor analysis retaining four correlated factors
The results showed that all the content items except four loaded on only three factors, with the first factor corresponding to UE and the second corresponding to CA
Summary
Psychopathy is a personality construct characterized by the manipulation of others for personal gain, a lack of empathy, and a lack of guilt and remorse (Viding et al, 2014; Duran-Bonavila et al, 2017). Callousness-unemotional (CU) traits are considered to be precursors of psychopathy, they can be observed at early ages (Viding et al, 2014), and remain relatively stable throughout life (Lynam, 1996; Frick et al, 2003b) They involve features such as the lack of empathy, manipulation of others, lack of remorse, irresponsible attitudes, and poor emotional expression (Frick, 2004). Low levels of anxiety and fear of punishment are related to serious violent delinquency, but high levels of callousness mediate the relationships For this reason, it is important to study these CU traits in childhood and adolescence with appropriate and reliable instruments so that interventions targeting minors with these traits can be developed
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