Hi Mengcheng, I am not a "relevant" expert, but I've been working on psychopathy for almost 5 years now. I am sure you have good reasons to use this new measure of psychopathy, and the CPTI has been recently validated. However, I would suggest to include a well-established scale (at least on a sub-group) to further validate your measure. The Antisocial Process Screening Device could be an option. You probably went through the relevant literature on this topic, but if you missed these works, I guess they  might be of interest for you: Schraft, C. V., Kosson, D. S., & McBride, C. K. (2013). Exposure to Violence within Home and Community Environments and Psychopathic Tendencies in Detained Adolescents. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 40(9), 1027–1043. doi:10.1177/0093854813486887
Yeh, M. T., Chen, P., Raine, A., Baker, L. A., & Jacobson, K. C. (2011). Child psychopathic traits moderate relationships between parental affect and child aggression. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 50(10), 1054–1064. doi:10.1016/j.jaac.2011.06.013 Farrington, Ullrich, & Salekin (2010).Environmental Influences on Child
and Adolescent Psychopathy. (in Salekin and Lynam's Handbook of Child and Adolescent Psychopathy) I would love to collaborate somehow in this project, that seems really interesting - longitudinal investigations on psychopathy are crucial for a deeper understanding of this very costly disorder! Please send me an email if there is any way that I can contribute. Carlo

I suggest you read Kevin Dutton's the Wisdom of the Psychopath - very interesting and different types of research on Adult Psychopathy.

Mengcheng, this is a very interesting project. Have you seen http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/abn/115/1/85/

My current research is on CU traits amongst adolescents.

Have you seen the parent report version of ICU: http://asm.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/05/10/1073191114534886.abstract

Perhaps you could also look at http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10862-014-9471-9

and also use Child Psychopathy scale

Dear Mengcheng,

Psychpathy comprises four major types of early disturbance. The one I have most experience of is narcissism. It peeks when the person is about 58 years old at least in our country. Then the partner, the co-worher, the subordinate who is a person brought up to think good about every person, to be generous and to take responsibility is badly exploited, abandoned, economically ruined, left alone with the children and so forth. The narcissist has his sense of entitlement and does not even understand that he used his surroundeing in a never seen egoistic way. He (80 out of 100 are men) does not know the the words sharing and empathy.

There are two ways to develop this kind of behaviour: early emotional deprivation leading to split as a defense mechanism i.e. the world is good or bad, black or white. no gray shades here. The partner is first idealized but when she gets tired of handling over narcissistic supply (admiration) she is put on the black side nothing will ever change this, and hated and changed for a better source with more water (capacity to admire). This means that also children who are admired and praised in excess can be subject to this disturbance.  

Karen Kernbery Bardenstein, Ph.D. says a "child's superior view of herself reflects in her haughtiness toward others. She does not view others as important and expresses no empathy or warmth toward them, because of her distorted view. The absence of reciprocity, as in taking turns, supports her inflated self-love. Others' needs don't matter to her. Her needs always prove more pressing. She believes the world revolves around her because of her uniqueness. Learning interests her only when she likes the subject matter. When she reaches a boring spot, her mind shuts down or she moves on to something that holds the promise of mastery and praise. Because she cannot tolerate failure, she often abandons a project that won't make her shine. When she doesn't receive praise for her endeavors, she opts out and stops trying."

The most prominent researcher in this area is Robert Hare from Canada who has studied this for 40 yrs and has a checklist for adult psychopathy. He is given courses around the world. With referense ro narcissism Sam Vaknin from Macedonia wrote the malignant Self out of own experience.  

A sense of entitlement, grandiosity, haughtiness, ways of treating animals, envious behavior are traits and factors you can add to your assessment scales or have as a base for interviews when assessing of this kind of behaviour in a child. Of course the most interesting thing would be to asses them again at the age about late 50ties to see what fell apart, how much damage was done and who went into psychoanalysis and who managed their lives "in a normal way".  

However, some persons with disturbances can though lead a relatively successfull life without daily "Sturm und Drang".  

Good Luck!

You might try contacting Henrik Andershed at Orebro University, Sweden (CAPS) -- he developed a questionnaire that is used with youth. If one exists that is appropriate, he or his wife, Anna-Karin Andershed would know.

[email protected]

[email protected]

Anna-Karin Andershed is an Associate Professor of Psychology, Dean of the Faculty Board of Humanities and Social Sciences, and research director of the Center for Criminological and Psychosocial Research (CAPS). They also study aggressive behavior in young persons as a risk factor for future deviant behavior.

there are several notable longitudinal studies focused either specifically on aspects of the etiology of psychopathology or on a broader scan of developmental issues.  For an example of the first type I suggest you look at the 27 years of work related to the Michigan Longitudinal Study under the direction of Professor Robert Zucker at the University of Michigan.  He is on Research Gate.   For an example of the second type, check out the early long study directed by Allen Sroufe and Bryon Egeland at the University of Minnesota.   Avsalom Caspi and Terri Moffitt have published major analyses focusing on the etiological of aggression using longitudinal data from New Zealand.  Our 10 year research in Michigan and nationally in partnership with American Indian/Alaska Native colleagues suggests that cultural context of measurement tools is a factor that you must take into account.  For example, nearly all instruments involved with human development research were developed in the United States or Europe, and nearly all developed by investigators from dominant cultural groups.  Therefore, they reflect the parenting styles perceived to be the most effective (or conversely) for parenting children within a particular cultural perspective.   For example, just take one item from the Alabama Parenting Questionnaire that related to PTA (Parent-Teacher Associations).  Does China have PTAs?  or, "you drive your child to a special activity?"  Is that a relevant question for China?  I can state that during my two weeks in Hong Kong this past September, I saw many children at ease riding the trains to get from one place to another and many of them seemed to be of the upper ages in your planned study.  The Child Behavior Checklist has been translated into many languages (I don't know if Mandarin or Cantonese are among them) and seems to hold up well in many cultures.  In the Michigan Longitudinal Study we used an enormous number of instruments in our effort to understand factors that predict risk for alcoholism  and co-morbid psychopathology (such as antisocial personality disorder and depression).   What is certain is that there is no single developmental pathway that completely predicts development of any particular form of psychopathology.  I suspect that only using two measures will restrict the amount of variance that you will be able to  explain, even if the measures have multiple scales within them.  Because you noted that you were not yet well versed in psychopathology, I suggest that you look at some of the studies and investigators that I have noted.  Oh yes, you also need to track the work of Kenneth Dodge at Duke University and his research which taps the same age group of interest to you.  

The accuracy of longitudinal research into psychopathy in general and psychopathic traits in particular depends on the timeline of the research. In order to ascertain the amount of time that psychopathic traits remain present in any sample requires long term follow-up. The restraint in financial support for this kind of research generally determines the timeline of the research T Some studies have looked at this issue. For example, Lynam et al. (2007) investigated the relationship between psychopathy assessed at age 13 and at age 24, obtaining a correlation of 0.31 Childhood Psychopathy Scale and the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. The authors concluded that:

“This constitutes the first demonstration of the relative stability of psychopathy from adolescence into adulthood and provides evidence for the incremental utility of the adolescent psychopathy construct”

The article was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychol. 2007 February; 116(1): 155–165. doi:10.1037/0021-843X.116.1.155, and on the Net as NIH Public Access.

 I hope that this helpful

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2242626/

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3335348/

I agree with Carlo Garofalo comment above.  Consider collecting more than one measure for quantifying Callous-Unemotional Traits.

For example,

Antisocial Process Screening Device (APSD).

Frick, P. J., & Hare, R. D. (2001). The antisocial process screening device (APSD) . Toronto: Multi-Health Systems.

Or the Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits

Kimonis ER, Frick PJ, Skeem JL, Marsee MA, Cruise K, Munoz LC, Aucoin KJ, Morris AS. (2008). Assessing callous-unemotional traits in adolescent offenders: validation of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits. Int J Law Psychiatry. 2008 Jun-Jul;31(3):241-52. doi: 10.1016/j.ijlp.2008.04.002

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18514315

Also, see this recent review

Frick PJ(1), Ray JV, Thornton LC, Kahn RE (2014) Annual research review: A developmental psychopathology approach to understanding callous-unemotional traits in children and adolescents with serious conduct problems. J Child Psychol Psychiatry. 2014 Jun;55(6):532-48. doi: 10.1111/jcpp.12152.

PubMed ID: 24117854

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24117854

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