The Development of Severe and Chronic Violence Among Youth: The Role of Psychopathic Traits and Reward Processing.
Psychopathic traits are a manifestation of a personality pathology that comprises a core affective-interpersonal dysfunction (callous-unemotional traits) and an impulsive-antisocial behavioral component. Of particular importance, psychopathic traits are associated with the perpetration of some of the most severe acts of violence, and they appear to indicate a subset of youth at risk for earlier onset, greater frequency, and persistence of violent offending. Although these youth represent a minority of the population, they commit a significant proportion of the violence in the general community. In our review, we highlight evidence of a unique neurobiological predisposition that underlies the core affective deficits and describe contemporary accounts for the developmental processes leading to the antisocial behavior associated with psychopathy. Current evidence suggests that, for this subset of youth, the structure and function of neural circuitry supporting emotion processing, reward learning, decision making, and the development of emotion related to empathy may be crucial to understanding why they are at risk for violence. In particular, a reward dominant pattern of neurobehavioral conditioning may explain how these youth progress to some of the most severe and persistent forms of violence. However, this pattern of conditioning may also be essential to the primary prevention of such deleterious behavior. We suspect that effective strategies to prevent such violence may ultimately be informed by understanding these affective and motivational mechanisms.
Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA. dreidy@cdc.gov.
Dennis E
DE
Reidy
Department of Psychology and Neuroscience, Millsaps College, Jackson, MS, USA.|Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA.
Elizabeth
E
Krusemark
Department of Psychology, Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine & Science, North Chicago, IL, USA.
David S
DS
Kosson
Division of Violence Prevention, Centers for Disease Control & Prevention, Atlanta, GA, USA.
Megan C
MC
Kearns
School of Social Work, Wayne State University, Detroit, MI, USA.
Joanne
J
Smith-Darden
Departments of Psychology & Neuroscience, University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM, USA.|The Nonprofit Mind Research Network, Albuquerque, NM, USA.
Kent A
KA
Kiehl
D000293:Adolescent; D000374:Aggression / Q000523:psychology; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000523:psychology*; D057237:Criminals; D004644:Emotions; D004645:Empathy; D006801:Humans; D007175:Impulsive Behavior; D012201:Reward; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*
Aggression; Callous-unemotional traits; Psychopathic traits; Psychopathy; Violence