The Association Between Callous–Unemotional Traits, Externalizing Problems, and Gender in Predicting Cognitive and Affective Morality Judgments in Adolescence

Morality deficits have been linked to callous–unemotional traits and externalizing problems in response to moral dilemmas, but these associations are still obscure in response to antisocial acts in adolescence. Limited evidence on young boys suggested that callous–unemotional traits and externalizing problems were associated with affective but not cognitive morality judgments. The present study investigated these associations in a community sample of 277 adolescents (Mage = 15.35, 64 % females). Adolescents with high callous–unemotional traits showed deficits in affective but not cognitive morality, indicating that they can identify the appropriate moral emotions in others, but experience deviant moral emotions when imagining themselves committing antisocial acts. Externalizing problems and male gender were also strongly related to deficits in affective morality, but they had smaller associations with deficits in cognitive morality too. Implications for treatment and the justice system are discussed.

• Publication year

  2016

• Venue

  Journal of Youth and Adolescence

• Publication date

  2016-06-22

• Fields of study

  Medicine, Psychology

• Identifiers
  DOI 10.1007/s10964-016-0527-xPMID 27334400PMCID 4982886
• External record

  Open on Semantic Scholar

• Source metadata

  Semantic Scholar, PubMed

• No claims are published for this paper.

• No concepts are published for this paper.

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