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Adolescent Psychopathic Traits and Violent Delinquency: Additive and Nonadditive Effects With Key Criminological Variables

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Youth Violence and Juvenile Justice

Published online on

Abstract

Though ties between having psychopathic attributes and criminality are strong, only recently has the criminological community appreciated that the characteristic traits of psychopathy are emergent in youth and are variably distributed in the population. In recognition, this study evaluates the value of psychopathic callous–unemotional (CU) traits in youth alongside key criminological variables in explaining violence. Results show that CU traits remain robust among traditional criminological variables in explaining juvenile violence. Further, CU traits are observed to interact with key criminological covariates such that at higher levels of one construct, the impact of other correlates on violence is weakened.