title: Love, eye contact and the developmental origins of empathy v. psychopathy.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  A propensity to attend to other people's emotions is a necessary condition for human empathy.
  
  
  OBJECTIVE
  To test our hypothesis that psychopathic disorder begins as a failure to attend to the eyes of attachment figures, using a `love' scenario in young children.
  
  
  METHODS
  Children with oppositional defiant disorder, assessed for callous-unemotional traits, and a control group were observed in a love interaction with mothers. Eye contact and affection were measured for each dyad.
  
  
  RESULTS
  There was no group difference in affection and eye contact expressed by the mothers. Compared with controls, children with oppositional defiant disorder expressed lower levels of affection back towards their mothers; those with high levels of callous-unemotional traits showed significantly lower levels of affection than the children lacking these traits. As predicted, the former group showed low levels of eye contact toward their mothers. Low eye contact was not correlated with maternal coercive parenting or feelings toward the child, but was correlated with psychopathic fearlessness in their fathers.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Impairments in eye contact are characteristic of children with callous-unemotional traits, and these impairments are independent of maternal behaviour.
authors.affiliation: King's College London, Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Institute of Psychiatry, London, UK. m.dadds@unsw.edu.au
authors.forename: Mark R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Dadds
authors.forename: Jennifer L
authors.initials: JL
authors.lastname: Allen
authors.forename: Bonamy R
authors.initials: BR
authors.lastname: Oliver
authors.forename: Nathan
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Faulkner
authors.forename: Katherine
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Legge
authors.forename: Caroline
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Moul
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Woolgar
authors.forename: Stephen
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Scott
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D000704:Analysis of Variance; D019958:Attention Deficit and Disruptive Behavior Disorders / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D002648:Child; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D019955:Conduct Disorder / Q000503:physiopathology* / Q000523:psychology; D004645:Empathy; D005133:Eye Movements; D005149:Facial Expression; D005239:Fear / Q000523:psychology; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008149:Love; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D010552:Personality Assessment; D002666:Psychology, Child / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult