Developmental patterns of psychopathic personality traits and the influence of social factors among a sample of serious juvenile offenders

Little is known about the development of psychopathic traits and the factors impacting its trajectory. Using a Latent Growth Curve Modeling (LCGM) approach with Multiple-Group Multiple-Cohort (MGMC) method to account for the cohort sequential design of the data, trajectories of the Grandiose-Manipulative (GM), the Callous-Unemotional (CU), and the Impulsive-Irresponsible (II) dimensions as measured by the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI; Andershed et al., 2002) were examined from ages 14.5–25 among a sample of serious juvenile offenders (n = 1354). It was also examined if several social risk factors (i.e., demographic characteristics, delinquent peer association, neighborhood disorder, parenting, parental criminality, and violence exposure) accounted for baseline levels (intercept) and change (slope) of each of the dimensions of psychopathic traits. While all three dimensions of the YPI declined from adolescence to young adulthood, the GM and II dimensions leveled-off sooner than the CU dimension. Delinquent peer association and parental warmth were most consistently associated with initial levels of all three dimensions; however, witnessing violence was associated with change in the GM dimension only. Delinquent peer association and parental warmth were associated with change in the CU dimension. None of the factors predicted change in the II dimension.