Do Adolescent Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Disorder Necessarily Overlap? The Case of Adoptees Exposed to Severe Early Deprivation

Background: There is a debate over whether disruptive behaviour should be regarded as a central component of, or rather as an epiphenomenon with little diagnostic value for, psychopathy. Aims: To test whether callous-unemotional (CU) traits and conduct disorder (CD) can be dissociated in the English and Romanian Adoptee Study, a prospective-longitudinal study of adopted individuals with a history of severe early institutional deprivation. Method: The Child and Adolescent Psychiatric Assessment was used to establish DSM-IV diagnoses for CD (and also ODD) at the 15 year follow-up stage. The Inventory of CallousUnemotional traits questionnaire was administered to assess psychopathy traits. Results: There was no significant association between CU traits and CD, both according to parent and youth self-report assessed categorically and dimensionally after controlling for confounds. Conclusions: The majority of individuals with high CU traits did not show CD in this special sample of children. Supporting the view, that while common, an overlap between these aspects of psychopathology is not inevitable and so providing evidence for the dissociation of these two concepts. In terms of classification, we argue for a diagnostic scheme where psychopathy can be diagnosed independently of CD.