Abstract
There is limited research on the genetic and environmental bases of psychopathic personality traits in children. In this study, psychopathic personality traits were assessed in a total of 1189 5-year-old boys and girls drawn from the Preschool Twin Study in Sweden. Psychopathic personality traits were assessed with the Child Problematic Traits Inventory, a teacher-report measure of psychopathic personality traits in children ranging from 3 to 12 years old. Univariate results showed that genetic influences accounted for 57, 25, and 74 % of the variance in the grandiose–deceitful, callous–unemotional, and impulsive–need for stimulation dimensions, while the shared environment accounted for 17, 48 and 9 % (n.s.) in grandiose–deceitful and callous–unemotional, impulsive–need for stimulation dimensions, respectively. No sex differences were found in the genetic and environmental variance components. The non-shared environment accounted for the remaining 26, 27 and 17 % of the variance, respectively. The three dimensions of psychopathic personality were moderately correlated (0.54–0.66) and these correlations were primarily mediated by genetic and shared environmental factors. In contrast to research conducted with adolescent and adult twins, we found that both genetic and shared environmental factors influenced psychopathic personality traits in early childhood. These findings indicate that etiological models of psychopathic personality traits would benefit by taking developmental stages and processes into consideration.
Highlights
IntroductionPsychopathy is a multifaceted syndrome often described as a constellation of affective (e.g., lack of remorse or guilt, shallow affect, callous/lack of empathy), interpersonalEur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2017) 26:469–479(e.g., glib/superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, manipulative), behavioral and antisocial (e.g., poor behavior control, impulsive, inability to accept responsibility for one’s actions) features [17, 38]
Psychopathy is a multifaceted syndrome often described as a constellation of affective, interpersonalEur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2017) 26:469–479(e.g., glib/superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, manipulative), behavioral and antisocial features [17, 38]
We found that genetic and shared environmental influences explained the variances in grandiose–deceitful, whereas Ficks et al found that mainly genetic influences were important for narcissism
Summary
Psychopathy is a multifaceted syndrome often described as a constellation of affective (e.g., lack of remorse or guilt, shallow affect, callous/lack of empathy), interpersonalEur Child Adolesc Psychiatry (2017) 26:469–479(e.g., glib/superficial charm, grandiose self-worth, manipulative), behavioral and antisocial (e.g., poor behavior control, impulsive, inability to accept responsibility for one’s actions) features [17, 38]. Psychopathy is related to a range of negative and dysfunctional outcomes including substance use, criminal behavior, psychopathology (e.g., borderline personality disorder) [21, 40, 42, 44, 56], and social maladjustment such as lower educational performance, unemployment and poor social relationships [4, 19, 44, 71]. Identifying individuals with psychopathic personality traits early in development is, crucial for intervention efforts, especially since these traits have been linked to early engagement in criminal activities (e.g., [39, 58, 62]). There has been very limited research on the genetic and environmental etiology of psychopathic personality traits in young children. This study aimed to bridge this research gap by investigating the extent of genetic influences on these traits in boys and girls and to investigate whether shared environmental influences play a significant role
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