Psychopathic Personality in Early Childhood: A Critical Comment on Lopez-Romero et al. (2021)

In Search of Conceptual Clarity About the Structure of Psychopathic Traits in Children: A Network-Based Proposal

Psychopathic traits in childhood have been revealed as potential identifiers of risk, being predictive of later forms of behavioral maladjustment. Yet, it is still under debate how psychopathic traits in children should be best conceptualized and which are the core dimensions for construct definition and prediction. The present study aims to examine the structure of psychopathic traits in childhood, and its predictive value, by using a combination of traditional factor analysis and more recent network-based methods. Data on psychopathic traits, as measured by the Child Problematic Traits Inventory (CPTI), were collected in a large sample of children (n = 2454; 48.2% girls), aged 3 to 6 at the onset of the study (Mage = 4.26; SD = 0.91), who were followed-up one and two years later using parent- and teacher-reports. Results showed that psychopathic traits measured via CPTI are best conceptualized as five latent factors encompassing grandiosity, deceitfulness, callousness, impulsivity and need of stimulation, a result that converged across informants and time. Callousness and grandiosity emerged as central traits using network analysis of parent-reports, while deceitfulness was most central using teacher-reports. Finally, callousness, impulsivity and deceitfulness emerged as the best predictors of concurrent, prospective and stable conduct problems. These results provide a refined structure of psychopathic traits in children that better accounts for the core elements of the construct. Additional theoretical and practical implications will be discussed in terms of assessment, diagnostic classification and tailored prevention/intervention.

Psychopathic Personality Configurations in Early Childhood: A Response to Dvoskin et al. (2022)

Dvoskin et al. (2022) offered a cautionary comment on an article published in the Journal of Personality Disorders (López-Romero et al., 2021). This comment was focused on the scientific and policy grounds of our study, and cautioned against the use of the "putative psychopathic personality" label for applied purposes. While we agree with most of their concerns and cautions, we aim to provide additional clarification on the raised concerns, noting that the purpose of our study is purely exploratory, and that its findings are not intended for applied purposes. We do expect that our study and this commentary will further clarify the importance of examining psychopathic personality from a developmental perspective, opening new ways of discussion regarding how to best conceptualize and study a construct that, while waiting for additional longitudinal research, has been shown as relevant in identifying a group of children and adolescents at increased risk for maladjustment.