Disorganised theories or disorganised attachments: An analysis of the divergence between attachment and psychopathology models explaining the early emergence of callous-unemotional traits

Abstract

Previous studies suggest children with callous-unemotional (CU) traits have a disorganised attachment, a notion that challenges two developmental frameworks, as the literature on children with CU traits places most of the aetiological burden on the child, whereas the attachment literature places most of this burden on the parent. First, the intergenerational transmission of CU traits was examined in a cross-sectional study with a sample of clinically-referred children. It investigated whether psychopathy in parents conferred risk specific to CU traits over and above general risk factors. Second, two psychometric tools were validated. The Interview on Critical Bonding Moments (ICBM), a retrospective assessment of parents’ state of mind during their child’s early development, and the Child Affective Behaviour (CAB) scale, which assesses children’s proximity-seeking, eye gaze, soothability and expression/reception of affect. Third, the relationships between CU traits and the ICBM and CAB were assessed using a Bayesian machine-learning algorithm to probe whether maternal negative affect during critical bonding experiences, and children’s affective responses, were associated with parental reports of CU traits. Fourth, longitudinal associations between markers from Study 3 and the development of CU traits when children were 4 were analysed using a sample of mother-child dyads assessed over a four-year period. Prior results were replicated, and the analysis found novel associations suggesting children’s dispositional characteristics are the main predictors of CU emergence. Child-driven effects were supported – consistent with the CU literature – as studies found strong associations between children’s affective behaviours and CU emergence. Assessments guided by an attachment framework accounted for smaller but significant effects, linking the perinatal period to the emergence of CU traits through associations with maternal fright during pregnancy and disinterest while feeding.