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. 2025 May;26(4):530-541.
doi: 10.1007/s11121-024-01753-z. Epub 2024 Dec 7.

A Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Informant Examination of Adolescent Psychopathy and its Links to Parental Monitoring: The Moderating Role of Resting Arousal

Nicholas A Bellamy  1 , Randall T Salekin  2 , Sarah J Racz  3 , Andres De Los Reyes  4
Affiliations

A Multi-Dimensional, Multi-Informant Examination of Adolescent Psychopathy and its Links to Parental Monitoring: The Moderating Role of Resting Arousal

Nicholas A Bellamy et al. Prev Sci. 2025 May.

Abstract

Recent work indicates clinically meaningful differences in domains of psychopathic personality - such as grandiose-manipulative (GM), callous-unemotional (CU), and daring-impulsive (DI) traits - and parenting factors. Yet, different domains of parenting and reports from multiple informants may vary in their associations to psychopathic traits. This study examined psychopathic traits and their links with parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure. Further, we evaluated whether adolescents' self-reported resting arousal moderated these associations. A mixed clinic-referred/community sample of 134 adolescent-parent dyads (Mage = 14.49; SD = 0.50; 66.4% female) completed multi-dimensional measures of psychopathy, parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure; adolescents also self-reported on their resting arousal. Results indicated links between: (a) increased parent-reported GM traits and decreased parent-reported parental knowledge, and (b) increased parent-reported DI traits and lower parent-reported monitoring behaviors, which were attenuated at high levels of adolescent-reported resting arousal. Associations between elevated dimensions of psychopathic traits and lower levels of parental monitoring behaviors, parental knowledge, and adolescent disclosure were most consistent within-informants, with some cross-informant associations identified for links between elevated GM and DI and lower levels of parental monitoring behaviors and parental knowledge. These findings have important implications for our understanding of how to assess and prevent psychopathy and associated externalizing problems, and suggest that targeting modifiable environmental and psychophysiological factors may be particularly important.

Keywords: Conduct Disorder (CD); Multi-informant; Parental monitoring; Psychopathy; Resting arousal.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declarations. Ethics Approval: All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the University of Maryland at College Park’s Institutional Review Board and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. Consent to Participate: Informed consent and assent was obtained from all individual participants in this study. Conflicts of Interest: The authors have no conflicts of interest.

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