Abstract
In youths, callous–unemotional (CU) traits and conduct problems (CP) are independently associated with bullying perpetration and these effects are also observed when controlling for sex. Moreover, research indicates that the co-existence of high levels of both CU and CP further increase the risk. Although several studies have examined the relationship between CU traits and traditional bullying, few have also included a measure of cyberbullying and very few of them have focused the early adolescence. The aim of this study was to replicate and extend these findings in a large sample of Italian early adolescents considering both traditional and cyberbullying behaviors. Data were extracted from the Bullying and Youth Mental Health Naples study (BYMHNS) which included 2959 students of 10–15 years of age. CP, CU traits, traditional bullying behaviors, and cyberbullying behaviors were assessed by multi-item self-report scales. As expected, we replicated the significant and specific association between CU traits and traditional bullying, extending the findings to cyberbullying. In addition, in the latter case the effect was moderated by CP. The theoretical and clinical implications of these results were discussed.
Highlights
CU traits have been mainly studied in populations of children and adolescents with conduct disorders, there is growing evidence that CU traits should be considered in non-clinical samples given that high scores on this dimension can be observed in individuals not showing evident conduct problems [12,15,16,17,18,19]
Related to the central point of this study, our results indicated that male, older adolescents, and adolescent with high scores on conduct problems or CU traits had higher scores on measures of traditional and cyberbullying perpetration
In this study, we replicated in a large sample of Italian adolescent previous findings indicating that CU traits are significantly and positively associated with bullying behaviors, over and above age, sex, and general conduct problems
Summary
It has been shown that CU traits constitute the affective dimension of psychopathy in adults [7] and that in children and adolescents the presence of high levels of these traits is associated with a higher risk of deficits in affective processing and future development of antisocial behaviors and other negative outcomes [8,9,10,11,12,13]. Data showed that independently of general conduct problems, CU traits are positively associated with aggression in both children and adolescents [15,21,22,23,24,25,26], including bullying behaviors [24,26,27,28,29,30,31,32]. High CU traits could be considered a general risk factor for the development of severe, persistent, and treatment-resistant forms of conduct disorder [33]
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