The associations between callous-unemotional traits and emotional awareness in youth

- We investigated how youths high in CU traits evaluate their own emotional world.
- Multidimensional measures of CU traits and emotional awareness were used.
- Levels of both internalizing and externalizing problems were accounted.
- Unemotional was negatively associated to awareness of own emotions.
- Callousness was negatively associated to attending and analyzing others' emotions.

This study aimed to further explore emotional correlates to CU traits by considering for the first time a multidimensional measure of emotion awareness concerning self-perception about own emotional processes. 668 preadolescent students (338 girls; mean age = 12.89 years, SD = 0.92 years) took part to the study. Over and above levels of both internalizing and externalizing problems, a negative link between CU traits and emotion awareness emerged. Specifically, unemotional was the facet of CU traits to be uniquely associated to three out of five dimensions of emotion awareness that were specifically focused on emotional processes concerning own emotions (i.e., differentiating emotions, verbal sharing of emotions, not hiding emotions). As for the proneness to attend and analyze others' emotions, a negative association emerged with the callousness dimension of CU traits. These results further confirmed that youths high in CU traits present specific emotional processing; moreover these results further highlighted the importance to consider self-perception about own emotional functioning in youths high in CU traits.