Are All Callous–Unemotional Youth Alike? Primary and Secondary Variants and the Breadth of Offending

Research on psychopathic-like traits in youth has increasingly emphasized heterogeneity rather than treating psychopathy as a unitary construct. Much of this work draws, either explicitly or implicitly, on Karpman's distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy. Primary variants are typically characterized by callous-unemotional features without anxiety, whereas secondary variants show the same affective features but with anxiety. Although this distinction has been widely invoked in developmental and clinical research, relatively little empirical work has examined whether these variant classifications correspond to meaningful differences in the within-individual breadth of harmful behavior among adjudicated youth while controlling for important contextual drivers, such as peer delinquency. Using data from the Pathways to Desistance study, the present research examines whether behavioral breadth is linked to variant type after controlling for known contextual and situational correlates of delinquency. Findings indicated that youth classified as secondary variants exhibited greater offending breadth than primary variants, and this association remained significant after accounting for peer delinquency and other relevant covariates. These findings suggest that partitioning psychopathy into variants offers better explanatory value for understanding behavioral breadth among justice-involved adolescents. Implications for developmental theory as well as policy and intervention efforts targeting high-risk youth are discussed.