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Callous-Unemotional Features are Associated with Emotion Recognition Impairments in Young ODD Children with Low but not High Affective Arousal

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Abstract

Despite increasing support for the distinction between primary and secondary variants of callous-unemotional features in children with disruptive behavioural disorders, evidence about whether emotion recognition deficits are only characteristic of primary CU is inconclusive. We tested whether, in young children with Oppositional Defiant Disorder (ODD; N = 74), level of affective arousal moderated the association between CU and performance on behavioural measures of emotional abilities. The association between CU and emotion recognition abilities was dependent on the child’s level of affective arousal with higher CU associated with poorer emotion recognition abilities for ODD children with lower affective arousal (r = − 0.49; p = .007) but not for those with higher levels (r = 0.03; p = .838). Our results replicate recent findings and give support to the notion that the primary CU variant is characterised emotionally by under arousal of affect, low affect dysregulation and impaired emotion recognition abilities.

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Funding

This research was supported in part by an Australian Research Council Discovery grant (Grant No. DP110101990) awarded to Richard O’Kearney and Karen Salmon.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research School of Psychology, Australian National University, Canberra, 2601, Australia

    Richard O’Kearney & Ren Ying Chng

  2. School of Psychology, Victoria University, Wellington, New Zealand

    Karen Salmon

Authors
  1. Richard O’Kearney
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  2. Ren Ying Chng
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  3. Karen Salmon
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Contributions

ROK and RYC designed the study. RYC and ROK managed the data files and undertook the statistical analyses for the purpose of this study. ROK took the lead in writing the manuscript while RYC contributed to all drafts, and KS provided input into final draft of the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Richard O’Kearney.

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The study was approved by the Human Research Ethics committees of both the Australian National University and Victoria University Wellington in accordance with ethical standards equivalent to the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments.

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Written informed consent was obtained from the parents of all participating children.

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O’Kearney, R., Chng, R.Y. & Salmon, K. Callous-Unemotional Features are Associated with Emotion Recognition Impairments in Young ODD Children with Low but not High Affective Arousal. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev 52, 869–879 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-020-01070-w

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