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Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?

Individuals with the combination of psychopathy and severe conduct disorder often get in a lot of trouble from their early childhood, and can cause great suffering and problems for other people and their immediate environment. Their antisocial behaviour has a tendency to develop into a chronic patte...

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Autores principales: Bjørnebekk, Gunnar, Mørkrid Thøgersen, Dagfinn
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8745021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35010668
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010409
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author Bjørnebekk, Gunnar
Mørkrid Thøgersen, Dagfinn
author_facet Bjørnebekk, Gunnar
Mørkrid Thøgersen, Dagfinn
author_sort Bjørnebekk, Gunnar
collection PubMed
description Individuals with the combination of psychopathy and severe conduct disorder often get in a lot of trouble from their early childhood, and can cause great suffering and problems for other people and their immediate environment. Their antisocial behaviour has a tendency to develop into a chronic pattern early in life, and the treatment prognosis in adulthood is poor. A large proportion of serious violent crimes in society can be attributed to this group of perpetrators. Until recently, it has been unclear whether traits of this type can be prevented or changed, so that these individuals and their surroundings can benefit from targeted treatments at an early stage. To reduce serious crime in a society, it is very important to develop effective measures for this particular group. A lack of empathy, indifference to others, and a lack of concern about their own performance appear to be key early signs in children and adolescents with persistent behavioural problems and more serious norm violations who continue into a criminal career upon reaching adulthood. These characteristics have been termed callous−unemotional (CU) traits, and they are considered to be a precursor to psychopathic traits in adulthood. In recent years, several studies have evaluated the degree to which treatments that have been proved effective for children and adolescents with severe behavioural problems also show effectiveness for children and adolescents with CU traits. Interventions specifically tailored to children with CU traits have also been developed with the aim of directly changing the ongoing development of this precursor to psychopathy. In this paper, we will address the extent to which current evidence-based treatment methods developed for children and adolescents with behavioural difficulties are equally effective when a child has CU traits. We will also take a closer look at the effects of interventions designed to change this trait. There will be a discussion regarding what seems relevant for a change in the trait itself, as well as a change in their antisocial behaviour.
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spelling pubmed-87450212022-01-11 Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents? Bjørnebekk, Gunnar Mørkrid Thøgersen, Dagfinn Int J Environ Res Public Health Review Individuals with the combination of psychopathy and severe conduct disorder often get in a lot of trouble from their early childhood, and can cause great suffering and problems for other people and their immediate environment. Their antisocial behaviour has a tendency to develop into a chronic pattern early in life, and the treatment prognosis in adulthood is poor. A large proportion of serious violent crimes in society can be attributed to this group of perpetrators. Until recently, it has been unclear whether traits of this type can be prevented or changed, so that these individuals and their surroundings can benefit from targeted treatments at an early stage. To reduce serious crime in a society, it is very important to develop effective measures for this particular group. A lack of empathy, indifference to others, and a lack of concern about their own performance appear to be key early signs in children and adolescents with persistent behavioural problems and more serious norm violations who continue into a criminal career upon reaching adulthood. These characteristics have been termed callous−unemotional (CU) traits, and they are considered to be a precursor to psychopathic traits in adulthood. In recent years, several studies have evaluated the degree to which treatments that have been proved effective for children and adolescents with severe behavioural problems also show effectiveness for children and adolescents with CU traits. Interventions specifically tailored to children with CU traits have also been developed with the aim of directly changing the ongoing development of this precursor to psychopathy. In this paper, we will address the extent to which current evidence-based treatment methods developed for children and adolescents with behavioural difficulties are equally effective when a child has CU traits. We will also take a closer look at the effects of interventions designed to change this trait. There will be a discussion regarding what seems relevant for a change in the trait itself, as well as a change in their antisocial behaviour. MDPI 2021-12-31 /pmc/articles/PMC8745021/ /pubmed/35010668 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010409 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Review
Bjørnebekk, Gunnar
Mørkrid Thøgersen, Dagfinn
Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title_full Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title_fullStr Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title_full_unstemmed Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title_short Possible Interventions for Preventing the Development of Psychopathic Traits among Children and Adolescents?
title_sort possible interventions for preventing the development of psychopathic traits among children and adolescents?
topic Review
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8745021/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/35010668
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph19010409
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