ReviewClinical child and family psychology review2020
Is Callous Always Cold? A Critical Review of the Literature on Emotion and the Development of Callous-Unemotional Traits in Children.
Review in Clinical child and family psychology review, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
20 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 47 citations in OpenAlex.
- Emotion Recognition Deficits in Children and Adolescents with Psychopathic Traits: A Systematic Review.Clinical child and family psychology review · 2024Pooled it
- Conduct problems and callous-unemotional traits in pre-schoolers: Psychosocial profiles in a Brazilian birth cohort.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Callous-Unemotional Traits and Their Association with Neurodevelopmental Disorders: Insights from Gaze Behaviour During Emotion Recognition.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Primary and Secondary Callous-Unemotional Childhood Variants in a Korean Community Sample.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
- Investigating cross-sectional and longitudinal relationships between brain structure and distinct dimensions of externalizing psychopathology in the ABCD sample.Neuropsychopharmacology : official publication of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology · 2025Article
- Low Parental Empathy Predicts Callous-Unemotional Traits in Children With Enhanced Autonomic Sensitivity to the Environment.Criminal behaviour and mental health : CBMH · 2025Article
- Predicting the Thrill: How Individual and Environmental Factors Shape Thrilling Perceptions of Violent and Non-violent Crime.Journal of developmental and life-course criminology · 2025Article
- The amygdala volume moderates the relationship between childhood maltreatment and callous-unemotional traits in adolescents with conduct disorder.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2025Article
- Resting heart rate moderates the relationship between parental emotion socialization and callous-unemotional traits in children.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2024Article
- Emotion Identification for Self and Other Associated with Callous-Unemotional Traits and Sex Differences in Early Adolescents.Child psychiatry and human development · 2024Article
- [Externalizing problem behavior with friends in adolescence: What role do factors of callous-unemotional traits play?]Bundesgesundheitsblatt, Gesundheitsforschung, Gesundheitsschutz · 2024Article
- Primary and Secondary Variants of Callous-Unemotional Traits in Community Youths: Differences in Anticipatory Fear.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- Morality in middle childhood: the role of callous-unemotional traits and emotion regulation skills.BMC psychology · 2023Article
- Callous-unemotional traits and externalizing problem behaviors in left-behind preschool children: the role of emotional lability/negativity and positive teacher-child relationship.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2023Article
- Dissociating cognitive and affective empathy across psychopathy dimensions: The role of interoception and alexithymia.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Is feeling bad good enough? Ethical guilt and callous-unemotional traits in childhood.Research on child and adolescent psychopathology · 2022Article
- Subnormal short-latency facial mimicry responses to dynamic emotional facial expressions in male adolescents with disruptive behavior disorders and callous-unemotional traits.Psychophysiology · 2022Article
- Factorial Structure of the Parent-Reported Version of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits Among Belgian Children: A Theory-Based Model.Frontiers in psychology · 2022Article
- Individual differences in white matter of the uncinate fasciculus and inferior fronto-occipital fasciculus: possible early biomarkers for callous-unemotional behaviors in young children with disruptive behavior problems.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2022Article
- Callous-Unemotional Traits Do Not Predict Functional Family Therapy Outcomes for Adolescents With Behavior Problems.Frontiers in psychology · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Low emotional responsiveness is considered a core feature of callous-unemotional (CU) traits in childhood and, in the context of antisocial behavior, a precursor of psychopathic traits in adulthood. However, recent findings suggest that CU traits are not always characterized by low emotional responsiveness and the evidence base requires review. This review asks a fundamental question- 'Is callous always cold?'-with a specific focus on emotional responsiveness and CU traits in children with conduct problems (CPs). PRISMA review protocols were followed to identify literature reporting on emotional responsiveness for children 3-18 years with CPs and varying (high and low) CU traits. Results from eligible studies were contrasted by age (children 3-11 years, adolescents 12-18 years), emotional responsive measurement type (physiological, behavioral, self-report), emotion-eliciting stimuli type (interactive activities, static imagery, film) and socio-emotional context of the stimuli (other-orientated, self-orientated, neutral). This review highlights considerable variation in results across studies: reduced emotional responsiveness was not synonymous with participants demonstrating high CU traits. A more consistent picture of reduced emotional responsiveness in participants with high CU traits was found when studies used physiological measures, when stimuli were other-orientated in socio-emotional context, and in older, adolescent samples. In conclusion, this paper advocates for a more nuanced understanding of the relationship between high CU traits and the specific factors involved in emotional responsiveness, ultimately suggesting that callous is not always cold. Given that emotional responsiveness is central to theories of moral development, these findings may suggest innovative approaches to early intervention.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.