Attachment and psychopathic traits in inpatient female and male adolescents

As high levels of psychopathic traits designate a severe group of antisocial individuals, there is an important need to find its correlates and intervention targets. In particular, there is a need to identify key dimensions of parent-child relationships that are related to psychopathic traits. The aim of the current study was to investigate relations between psychopathic traits and attachment to parents in female and male inpatient adolescents. A total of 122 male and 199 female adolescents aged 12–17 years were interviewed with the Child Attachment Interview. Parents and youths completed the Antisocial Process Screening Device. Results demonstrated that psychopathic traits - in particular callous-unemotional traits reported by parents - were related to dismissing attachment style to mother and father, to preoccupied attachment style to mother, and various attachment dimensions in male adolescents, but not in female adolescents. Our results highlight the importance of gaining a better understanding of the gender-specific relations between callous-unemotional traits and attachment to mother and father in adolescence.