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Researchers and mental health professionals have paid growing attention to identify risk factors contributing to the prediction, assessment, and treatment of behaviorally at-risk youth. Among the well-established psychological factors associated with the development and persistence of antisocial behavior during adolescence, the role of psychopathy as well as moral cognitive processes has been emphasized over decades. In this paper, the link between psychopathic traits, self-serving cognitive distortions and antisocial behaviors during adolescence has been examined through a review of the literature focused on empirical studies. Furthermore, starting from the studies on the treatment of psychopathy, which highlighted how the longstanding "Nothing Works" doctrine has been overtaken by the more recent "What Works" approach to offender treatment, we tried to point out some treatment implications for preventing and counteracting antisocial behaviors among psychopathic youth. In this regard, guided by previous research that recognized the self-serving cognitive distortions as cognitive expression of psychopathic traits, we suggested the need to early identify youth's self-serving cognitive distortions and the potential benefits of focusing on cognitive restructuring processes, especially for those individuals with high levels of psychopathic personality traits. After overcoming the rooted view of psychopathy as untreatable condition, we concluded this paper by providing some relevant suggestions, both for juvenile justice systems and clinical settings, in the field of prevention and treatment, to break the psychopathy-violence link during adolescence and adulthood effectively. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-serving cognitions and callous-unemotional traits play important roles in adolescent antisocial behavior. The objective of this study was to cross-sectionally explore the mediating role of self-serving cognitions in the relationship between callous-unemotional traits and antisocial behavior. A sample of 972 high-school students completed self-report questionnaires assessing callous-unemotional traits, self-serving cognitive distortions and antisocial behavior. Two competing models exploring indirect effects accounting for the relationships between self-serving cognitive distortions, callous-unemotional traits and antisocial behaviors were tested. Both models revealed significant indirect effects, suggesting both pathways are possible. Gender was found to moderate these models. These findings suggest the importance of targeting self-serving cognitions in therapeutic interventions and increase our understanding of the role of self-serving cognitions in antisocial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The aim of the present study was to assess the relative contributions self-serving cognitive distortions and psychopathic traits to adolescent antisocial behavior. Participants were 972 high-school students who completed self-report questionnaires. Hierarchical multiple regression analyses showed that self-serving cognitive distortions, psychopathic traits, as well as their interaction term were significant predictors of antisocial behavior in both genders after adjustment for the main other cognitive, psychopathological and sociofamilial variables. High levels of self-serving cognitive distortions were associated with more extensive antisocial behavior among participants with higher scores on psychopathic traits. This result may have implications for prevention and treatment. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The reliability and validity of the self-report questionnaire How I Think (HIT), designed to assess self-serving cognitive distortions related to antisocial behavior, was tested among Swedish offender and nonoffender adults and adolescents (N = 364). The results showed self-serving distortions to be more common among offenders and to predict self-reported antisocial behavior when tested among adults. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed, in contrast to earlier findings, that the underlying structure of the HIT was best explained by a three-factor solution with one major cognitive factor, referred to as “criminal mind.” It was concluded that the HIT, after further examination of its structural and divergent validity, could be used as a measure of criminal thinking in adults as well as in adolescents. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]