Revisiting Lynam's notion of the "fledgling psychopath": are HIA-CP children truly psychopathic-like?

Abstract

Background: In his developmental model of emerging psychopathy, Lynam proposed that the "fledgling psychopath" is most likely to be located within a subgroup of children elevated in both hyperactivity/inattention/impulsivity (HIA) and conduct problems (CP). This approach has garnered some empirical support. However, the extent to which Lynam's model captures children who resemble psychopathy with regard to the core affective and interpersonal features remains unclear.

Methods: In the present study, we investigated this issue within a large community sample of youth (N = 617). Four groups (non-HIA-CP, HIA-only, CP-only, and HIA-CP), defined on the basis of teacher reports of the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire (SDQ), were compared with respect to parent-reported psychopathic-like traits and subjective emotional reactivity in response to unpleasant, emotionally-laden pictures from the International Affective Pictures System (IAPS).

Results: Results did not support Lynam's model. HIA-CP children did not appear most psychopathic-like on dimensions of callous-unemotional and narcissistic personality, nor did they report reduced emotional reactivity to the IAPS relative to the other children. Post-hoc regression analyses revealed a significant moderation such that elevated HIA weakened the association between CP and emotional underarousal.

Conclusions: Implications of these findings with regard to the development of psychopathy are discussed.

Figure 1

Interaction of Conduct Problems and Hyperactivity on Arousal Ratings. Note. HIA (Hyperactivity) and CP (Conduct Problems) come from teacher report on the Strengths and Difficulties Questionnaire. High and low conditional values for the predictors represent the 90th and 50th percentiles, respectively. * p < .05; ** p < .01.