Developmental Trajectories and Transitions in Callous-Unemotional Traits Across Adolescence: The Role of Parenting and Emotion Dysregulation

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits reflect low empathy, guilt, and concern for others and are associated with persistent antisocial behavior, aggression, and delinquency. Although CU traits vary across adolescence, less is known about factors predicting increases versus decreases in severity. Using four annual assessments spanning early to middle adolescence from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development Social Development (ABCD-SD) Study, we characterized CU trajectories using latent class growth analysis and examined changes in CU severity between annual assessments. Logistic regression tested whether parenting and emotion dysregulation prospectively distinguished shifts in CU severity among adolescents who moved between categories. Three developmental trajectories emerged: Low (46.9%), Moderate (40.1%), and Elevated (13.0%). Among adolescents beginning at moderate severity, greater positive parenting was associated with movement to low rather than elevated CU severity (OR = 0.69, p < .001), whereas greater negative parenting (OR = 1.21, p = .024) and emotion dysregulation (OR = 1.18, p = .036) were associated with movement to elevated rather than low severity. Among adolescents beginning at low severity, greater positive parenting was associated with movement to moderate rather than directly to elevated severity (OR = 0.82, p = .045), whereas greater emotion dysregulation was associated with movement directly to elevated rather than moderate severity (OR = 1.37, p = .003). These findings demonstrate that CU trajectories can remain relatively stable at the group level even as adolescents show year-to-year shifts in CU severity, and identify parenting and emotion dysregulation as prospective predictors and potentially modifiable targets for reducing CU traits.