Strong evidence that callous–unemotional traits are not related to risk-taking task performance

Introduction

Callous–unemotional (CU) traits are an aspect of psychopathy, which includes traits such as callously using others for one’s personal gain, a lack of caring for society’s values and lacking emotional depth¹. Risk-taking includes choosing behaviors with uncertain outcomes (but possibly higher rewards) over behavior with more certainty in its rewards². Here, we show that the two are unrelated when measured in a laboratory setting.

This is surprising for three reasons. First, a variety of risky real-world behaviors and illegal behaviors¹—themselves risky—are associated with CU traits (e.g., substance use, sexual risk-taking)^3–7. Second, there is a difference in reward and punishment responsivity in relation to CU traits^4,6,8–12. For example, in a test of gambling, the Balloon Analogue Risk Task (BART), CU was related to weaker reward responsivity, in that adolescents with these traits failed to show an increase in risk-taking following successful (rewarded) trials^4,13. Third, CU traits are one aspect of a cluster of traits known as psychopathy, which is associated with risk-taking^14–16.

These data were originally collected as part of a study about the influence of peer presence on risk-taking behavior, with two laboratory tasks conducted^13,17. CU traits were measured as a potential moderator. Results on the relationship between CU traits and a gambling task have been previously reported using frequentist methods, but the null finding failed to be interpreted¹³. Here, we re-analyze the data in a Bayesian framework, allowing for the relationship between CU traits and gambling to be interpreted. In addition, for the first time, we report our findings on the association between CU traits and a driving risk-taking task¹⁷.

Methods

Results

Figure 1 shows scatterplots of the relations among the three variables. There was a significant zero-order correlation between the tasks, r=0.22, p<0.001, but not between the ICU scores and either the BART, r=0.033, p=0.397, N=657, BF₁₀=1/8.09 or the driving task, r=0.013, p=0.738, N=672, BF₁₀=1/11.00. More importantly, a multiple linear regression, with the risk-taking tasks predicting ICU scores, showed no significant relation to the BART, β=0.033, t=0.824, p=0.410, or the driving task, β= -0.000, t= -0.012, p=0.990. The overall fit was F (2, 654)=0.359, p=0.698; R²=0.001, R=0.033, N=657, BF₁₀=1/60.22. In a Bayesian analysis, this is considered strong evidence for the null hypothesis^25,26.

Figure 1. Scatterplots of the relations among the three variables.

Scores were adjusted for peer-level clustering, since participants were recruited with two friends.

We also examined the comparability of our sample to others. The mean ± SD for total ICU (21.62 ± 7.85) was comparable to previous community and at-risk samples. For example, our scores were similar to those from a community sample (male, 25.25 ± 7.90; female, 21.76 ± 9.4)²⁷, as well as to youths from a residential facility (25.74 ± 7.95)²⁸.

Discussion

The results of this study rule out a specific theory about why CU traits are related to risky real-world behaviors including illegal behavior. People with CU traits are not more likely to engage in risky behavior in a lab setting, so real-world risky behaviors are unlikely to be driven by risk-seeking for its own sake. More broadly, this is a worked demonstration that differences in reward and punishment responsivity on a task do not necessarily imply differences in overall risk-taking, even in the same dataset. On the basis of previously reported findings^13,17 and our re-analyses, we conclude that these two concepts should not be used interchangeably in interpreting risk-taking results.

There are potential alternative explanations for why people with high CU traits tend to do risky things, like having unprotected sex. For one, they may simply place different values on the outcomes of catching a disease and/or seeking bodily sensations. However, an interaction between CU traits and antisocial behavior (i.e., conduct disorder) has shown effects on laboratory risk-taking²³. One broad possibility is that CU traits do not operate singly, since psychopathy is multifaceted, and some factors of psychopathy appear to be more reliably related to risk taking than others^14,30.

People who engage in antisocial behavior suffer legal, educational and socio-economic consequences³¹, and we know CU traits predict antisocial behavior^32,33. Thus, further research is needed to understand the mechanisms by which people with CU traits (i) engage in antisocial behavior, and (ii) fail to care about the consequences of their behavior on themselves and on other people. The present study sheds light on one part of this, by showing that one obvious idea of how CU traits and illegal behavior relate is not tenable.

Data availability

Dataset 1. Subject demographic information, together with Inventory of Callous–Unemotional Traits score and results of the tasks. Data are provided in raw form and peer-level adjusted format within the same spreadsheet²⁹. Condition: peer present, 1; peer absent, 0; Subject ID, anonymized participant ID number; Female: female gender, 1; male gender, 0; Age, age in years; BART Pumps AdjAvg_raw data, adjusted average pumps; Peer group level adjusted BART Pumps, peer-group level-adjusted adjusted average pumps; Peer ID, peer group membership ID number; Stoplight Intersections_raw data, number of intersections entered on the Stoplight driving task; Peer group level adjusted Stoplight, peer-group level-adjusted number of intersections entered on the Stoplight driving task; Total ICU, number of CU traits using the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits.

DOI: 10.5256/f1000research.14623.d201818²⁹