Psychopathy traits and their link to emotion recognition impairments in conduct disorder

Gregor Kohls; Anka Bernhard; Graeme Fairchild; Christina Stadler; Lucres Jansen; Stephane A. De Brito; Veit Roessner; Christine M. Freitag; Kerstin Konrad; Erik M. Elster

doi:10.1002/jcv2.70055

Psychopathy traits and their link to emotion recognition impairments in conduct disorder

Gregor Kohls, Anka Bernhard, Graeme Fairchild, Christina Stadler, Lucres Jansen, Stephane A. De Brito, Veit Roessner, Christine M. Freitag, Kerstin Konrad, Erik M. Elster

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

1 Citation (SciVal)

Abstract

Background: Neurocognitive models suggest that callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youths with conduct disorder (CD) are linked to emotion recognition impairments, particularly in identifying distress emotions like fear and sadness. However, CD may be accompanied by grandiose-manipulative (GM) and/or impulsive-irresponsible (II) traits in addition to CU traits, consistent with the notion that psychopathy is a multifaceted construct. It remains unclear whether subgroups of CD youths with GM or II traits, as well as a combination of multiple psychopathic traits, show distinct patterns of emotion recognition impairment. Methods: We therefore assessed emotion recognition accuracy, focusing on the six basic emotions, in 538 youths with CD (315 girls, 9–18 years) who were assigned to one of eight mutually exclusive subgroups based on high or low scores (above/below the 75th percentile cut-offs) on CU, GM, and II traits as assessed by the Youth Psychopathy Inventory (YPI) self-report. Results: Support vector machine analyses supported the validity of the subgroup assignment based on YPI cut-off scores (sensitivities/specificities ≥75%–100%). Multinomial logistic regression models revealed that the CD subgroup with high levels across all three psychopathy traits had the most pervasive impairment in terms of higher error rates for recognizing sadness, disgust, and surprise. Notably, high CU traits were not consistently associated with impairments in fear and sadness recognition. Instead, CD youths with both high GM and II traits, but normal CU traits, showed impaired fear recognition. Conclusion: These findings challenge existing models that prioritize CU traits as the main driver of emotion recognition impairments in CD. Instead, different psychopathy traits appear to contribute distinctively to such impairments, including the recognition of distress emotions. This suggests that CU traits alone may not sufficiently explain the neurocognitive heterogeneity in emotion recognition seen in youths with CD.

Original language	English
Article number	e70055
Number of pages	11
Journal	JCPP Advances
Early online date	30 Sept 2025
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1002/jcv2.70055
Publication status	E-pub ahead of print - 30 Sept 2025

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Funding

Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung. Grant Number: 01GL2405B Economic and Social Research Council. Grant Number: ES/V003526/1 Brain and Behavior Research Foundation. Grant Number: 30849 European Commission. Grant Number: 602407 This study was funded by the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/2007–2013) under Grant Agreement No. 602407 (FemNAT-CD, coordinator: CMF). G.K. was supported by a 2023 NARSAD Young Investigator Grant from the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation (BBRF; Grant No. 30849). S.A.D.B. was supported by an ESRC grant (Grant No. ES/V003526/1). G.K., A.B., V.R., and E.M.E. were also supported by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) as part of the German Center for Child and Adolescent Health (DZKJ) under the funding code 01GL2405B. We thank Dr. Josefine Rothe, who provided statistical advice, which was partly funded by a BBRF Grant (Grant No. 30849). Open Access funding enabled and organized by Projekt DEAL.

UN SDGs

This output contributes to the following UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

SDG 3 Good Health and Well-being

Keywords

callous-unemotional traits
conduct disorder
emotion recognition
grandiose-manipulative traits
impulsive-irresponsible traits
psychopathy

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Developmental and Educational Psychology
Psychology (miscellaneous)
Psychiatry and Mental health

Access to Document

10.1002/jcv2.70055Licence: CC BY

Cite this

@article{088a28cf72684d329d033152e20d3903,

title = "Psychopathy traits and their link to emotion recognition impairments in conduct disorder",

abstract = "Background: Neurocognitive models suggest that callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youths with conduct disorder (CD) are linked to emotion recognition impairments, particularly in identifying distress emotions like fear and sadness. However, CD may be accompanied by grandiose-manipulative (GM) and/or impulsive-irresponsible (II) traits in addition to CU traits, consistent with the notion that psychopathy is a multifaceted construct. It remains unclear whether subgroups of CD youths with GM or II traits, as well as a combination of multiple psychopathic traits, show distinct patterns of emotion recognition impairment. Methods: We therefore assessed emotion recognition accuracy, focusing on the six basic emotions, in 538 youths with CD (315 girls, 9–18 years) who were assigned to one of eight mutually exclusive subgroups based on high or low scores (above/below the 75th percentile cut-offs) on CU, GM, and II traits as assessed by the Youth Psychopathy Inventory (YPI) self-report. Results: Support vector machine analyses supported the validity of the subgroup assignment based on YPI cut-off scores (sensitivities/specificities ≥75\%–100\%). Multinomial logistic regression models revealed that the CD subgroup with high levels across all three psychopathy traits had the most pervasive impairment in terms of higher error rates for recognizing sadness, disgust, and surprise. Notably, high CU traits were not consistently associated with impairments in fear and sadness recognition. Instead, CD youths with both high GM and II traits, but normal CU traits, showed impaired fear recognition. Conclusion: These findings challenge existing models that prioritize CU traits as the main driver of emotion recognition impairments in CD. Instead, different psychopathy traits appear to contribute distinctively to such impairments, including the recognition of distress emotions. This suggests that CU traits alone may not sufficiently explain the neurocognitive heterogeneity in emotion recognition seen in youths with CD.",

keywords = "callous-unemotional traits, conduct disorder, emotion recognition, grandiose-manipulative traits, impulsive-irresponsible traits, psychopathy",

author = "Gregor Kohls and Anka Bernhard and Graeme Fairchild and Christina Stadler and Lucres Jansen and \{De Brito\}, \{Stephane A.\} and Veit Roessner and Freitag, \{Christine M.\} and Kerstin Konrad and Elster, \{Erik M.\}",

year = "2025",

month = sep,

day = "30",

doi = "10.1002/jcv2.70055",

language = "English",

journal = "JCPP Advances",

issn = "2692-9384",

publisher = "John Wiley and Sons Inc.",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - Psychopathy traits and their link to emotion recognition impairments in conduct disorder

AU - Kohls, Gregor

AU - Bernhard, Anka

AU - Fairchild, Graeme

AU - Stadler, Christina

AU - Jansen, Lucres

AU - De Brito, Stephane A.

AU - Roessner, Veit

AU - Freitag, Christine M.

AU - Konrad, Kerstin

AU - Elster, Erik M.

PY - 2025/9/30

Y1 - 2025/9/30

N2 - Background: Neurocognitive models suggest that callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youths with conduct disorder (CD) are linked to emotion recognition impairments, particularly in identifying distress emotions like fear and sadness. However, CD may be accompanied by grandiose-manipulative (GM) and/or impulsive-irresponsible (II) traits in addition to CU traits, consistent with the notion that psychopathy is a multifaceted construct. It remains unclear whether subgroups of CD youths with GM or II traits, as well as a combination of multiple psychopathic traits, show distinct patterns of emotion recognition impairment. Methods: We therefore assessed emotion recognition accuracy, focusing on the six basic emotions, in 538 youths with CD (315 girls, 9–18 years) who were assigned to one of eight mutually exclusive subgroups based on high or low scores (above/below the 75th percentile cut-offs) on CU, GM, and II traits as assessed by the Youth Psychopathy Inventory (YPI) self-report. Results: Support vector machine analyses supported the validity of the subgroup assignment based on YPI cut-off scores (sensitivities/specificities ≥75%–100%). Multinomial logistic regression models revealed that the CD subgroup with high levels across all three psychopathy traits had the most pervasive impairment in terms of higher error rates for recognizing sadness, disgust, and surprise. Notably, high CU traits were not consistently associated with impairments in fear and sadness recognition. Instead, CD youths with both high GM and II traits, but normal CU traits, showed impaired fear recognition. Conclusion: These findings challenge existing models that prioritize CU traits as the main driver of emotion recognition impairments in CD. Instead, different psychopathy traits appear to contribute distinctively to such impairments, including the recognition of distress emotions. This suggests that CU traits alone may not sufficiently explain the neurocognitive heterogeneity in emotion recognition seen in youths with CD.

AB - Background: Neurocognitive models suggest that callous-unemotional (CU) traits in youths with conduct disorder (CD) are linked to emotion recognition impairments, particularly in identifying distress emotions like fear and sadness. However, CD may be accompanied by grandiose-manipulative (GM) and/or impulsive-irresponsible (II) traits in addition to CU traits, consistent with the notion that psychopathy is a multifaceted construct. It remains unclear whether subgroups of CD youths with GM or II traits, as well as a combination of multiple psychopathic traits, show distinct patterns of emotion recognition impairment. Methods: We therefore assessed emotion recognition accuracy, focusing on the six basic emotions, in 538 youths with CD (315 girls, 9–18 years) who were assigned to one of eight mutually exclusive subgroups based on high or low scores (above/below the 75th percentile cut-offs) on CU, GM, and II traits as assessed by the Youth Psychopathy Inventory (YPI) self-report. Results: Support vector machine analyses supported the validity of the subgroup assignment based on YPI cut-off scores (sensitivities/specificities ≥75%–100%). Multinomial logistic regression models revealed that the CD subgroup with high levels across all three psychopathy traits had the most pervasive impairment in terms of higher error rates for recognizing sadness, disgust, and surprise. Notably, high CU traits were not consistently associated with impairments in fear and sadness recognition. Instead, CD youths with both high GM and II traits, but normal CU traits, showed impaired fear recognition. Conclusion: These findings challenge existing models that prioritize CU traits as the main driver of emotion recognition impairments in CD. Instead, different psychopathy traits appear to contribute distinctively to such impairments, including the recognition of distress emotions. This suggests that CU traits alone may not sufficiently explain the neurocognitive heterogeneity in emotion recognition seen in youths with CD.

KW - callous-unemotional traits

KW - conduct disorder

KW - emotion recognition

KW - grandiose-manipulative traits

KW - impulsive-irresponsible traits

KW - psychopathy

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/105018348280

U2 - 10.1002/jcv2.70055

DO - 10.1002/jcv2.70055

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:105018348280

SN - 2692-9384

JO - JCPP Advances

JF - JCPP Advances

M1 - e70055

ER -

Psychopathy traits and their link to emotion recognition impairments in conduct disorder

Abstract

Data Availability Statement

Funding

UN SDGs

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this