title: The Relationship Between Early Life Events, Parental Attachment, and Psychopathic Tendencies in Adolescent Detainees.
abstract: Despite increasing interest in understanding psychopathic traits in youth, the role of early environmental factors in the development of psychopathic traits is not well understood. No prior studies have directly examined the relationship between early life events and psychopathic traits. We examined links between life events in the first 4 years of life and indices of the core affective and interpersonal components of psychopathy. Additionally, we examined relationships between early life events, psychopathic traits, and attachment to parents among 206 adjudicated adolescents. Results indicated that the total number of early life events was positively correlated with indices of the affective component of psychopathy. Moreover, psychopathic traits moderated the relationship between the number of early life events and later reports of attachment to parents. Findings suggest that early environmental factors could have important implications for the development of psychopathic traits and may impact attachment to parents for youth with psychopathic traits.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, IL, 60064, USA. Erica.Christian@my.rfums.org.
authors.forename: Erica J
authors.initials: EJ
authors.lastname: Christian
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, IL, 60064, USA.
authors.forename: Christine L
authors.initials: CL
authors.lastname: Meltzer
authors.affiliation: Thede Family Center for Autism and Neurodevelopmental Disorders, Colorado Springs, CO, USA.
authors.forename: Linda L
authors.initials: LL
authors.lastname: Thede
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science, 3333 Green Bay Road, North Chicago, IL, 60064, USA.
authors.forename: David S
authors.initials: DS
authors.lastname: Kosson
mesh_terms: D000293:Adolescent; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008016:Life Change Events; D008297:Male; D009769:Object Attachment; D010287:Parent-Child Relations; D010290:Parents / Q000523:psychology*; D011329:Prisoners / Q000523:psychology*; D011599:Psychopathology; D012931:Social Environment; D013223:Statistics as Topic
keywords: Adolescents; Attachment; Environmental factors; Life events; Psychopathic traits