ArticleJournal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines2025
Callous-unemotional traits, cognitive functioning, and externalizing problems in a propensity-matched sample from the ABCD study.
Article in Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed.
- Untangling relationships between cognitive development and child and adolescent mental health: Findings from the ABCD Study.Developmental cognitive neuroscience · 2026Review
- Neuroanatomical Subtypes of Callous-Unemotional Traits in a Community Sample of Youth.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Do executive functions moderate or mediate? exploring their role in the prospective association between psychopathic traits and conduct problems in children.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Cognitive Control Difficulties Differentiate Callous-Unemotional Traits from Conduct Problems: A Pre-Registered Double-Blind Randomized Controlled Trial Analysis.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
8 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundMany studies show that both callous-unemotional (CU) traits (e.g., low empathy, lack of guilt) and cognitive difficulties increase risk for externalizing psychopathology across development. However, other work suggests that some aggression (e.g., relational, proactive) may rely on intact cognitive function, which could vary based on the presence of CU traits. Moreover, no prior research has adequately accounted for common risk factors shared by CU traits, cognitive difficulties, and externalizing problems, which confounds conclusions that can be drawn about their purported relationships. The current study addressed these knowledge gaps by leveraging rigorous propensity matching methods to isolate associations between CU traits and different dimensions of cognitive function and externalizing problems.
methodsAssociations between CU traits, cognitive functioning, and externalizing outcomes were tested within dimensional (n = 11,868) and propensity-matched group-based (n = 1,224) models using data from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Study®, with rigorous statistical control for shared sociodemographic risk factors. Cross-sectional outcomes were parent-reported symptoms of conduct disorder (CD), oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Longitudinal outcomes were child-reported overt and relational aggression.
resultsCU traits were uniquely related to more parent-reported CD, ODD, ADHD symptoms, as well as more child-reported aggressive behaviors. Effects of cognitive difficulties were domain specific and were not consistent across dimensional and propensity matched models. There was minimal evidence for divergent associations between CU traits and externalizing outcomes as a function of cognition (i.e., no moderation).
conclusionsRigorous control for sociodemographic factors within propensity-matched models establish CU traits as a robust and unique risk factor for externalizing psychopathology, over and above difficulties with cognitive functioning.
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Registered trials
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