This longitudinal study examined whether developmental trajectories of three psychopathic trait dimensions—callous-unemotional (CU), grandiose-deceitful (GD), and impulsivity-need for stimulation (INS)—predicted later socioemotional outcomes (emotion recognition, empathy, prosocial behavior, social initiative) in 175 community children followed from ages ~5 to ~10 across five waves.
CU traits showed the broadest impact: higher initial CU levels predicted lower teacher-rated affective empathy, behavioral empathy, prosocial orientation, and social initiative; increasing CU trajectories predicted poorer prosocial orientation. GD traits predicted lower prosocial orientation and social initiative; INS traits predicted only lower prosocial orientation. Emotion recognition deficits were sparse—limited to happiness recognition (CU slope) and sadness recognition (GD slope).
Community sample limits generalizability to clinical or high-risk groups. Socioemotional outcomes relied on teacher ratings (subject to bias), while only emotion recognition used a performance-based measure. The study spans early-to-middle childhood only, leaving adolescent trajectories unexamined.
In young children, rising callous-unemotional traits signal broad downstream risk for empathy and prosocial deficits—not just emotion recognition problems—making teacher-observed empathy and social behavior key targets for early screening and intervention. Clinicians should not rule out socioemotional risk based on intact emotion recognition alone.
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