Authors
Jamie L Flexon, T Michelle Encalada, Marcia Diaz
Published in
International journal of offender therapy and comparative criminology. Pages 306624X261490598. Oct 07, 2026. Epub Oct 07, 2026.
Abstract
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.
PMID:
42844937
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 08 Oct 2026.
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