Abstract
The Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI) is a newly developed informant-rated instrument to measure psychopathic traits during early childhood. The aim of this study was to examine the longitudinal measurement invariance of the CPTI in a group of Chinese schoolchildren. Mothers of 585 children aged 8 to 12 years (50% girls) completed the CPTI twice with one-year interval. Confirmatory factor analyses showed that the CPTI had strict invariance (i.e., equality of factor patterns, loadings, intercepts, and item uniqueness) across time. Furthermore, the internal consistencies for the CPTI subscales were good at both time points and the stability coefficients over time were moderate. Findings suggest that, in children aged 8 to 12 years old, changes in CPTI scores across time can be attributed to actual changes in the child’s psychopathic personality.
Highlights
Psychopathy or psychopathic traits has been a common area of research in psychopathology and psychology [1, 2]
Our results suggested that the three-factor solution of the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI) had longitudinal measurement invariance (LMI) over a one-year period
Our findings provide further support for the three-factor structure of the CPTI and, more importantly, show that this structure is invariant across a one-year time interval
Summary
Psychopathy or psychopathic traits has been a common area of research in psychopathology and psychology [1, 2]. Psychopathic traits have been linked to severe conduct problems, long-lasting psychosocial problems, delinquency, behavior maladjustment, and various forms of aggressive behavior [6,7,8,9,10]. It is believed that psychopathic traits do not emerge suddenly in early adulthood, but rather that their roots may lie in childhood and adolescence [10,11,12,13].
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