Threat Vigilance in Early Childhood: Angry Face Attention Precedes CU Traits and Later Behavior Problems

This study examined children's attention biases to angry, sad, and happy displays as antecedents to callous-unemotional (CU) traits and subsequent internalizing and externalizing difficulties. The goal was to identify early risk processes that contribute to the developmental cascade of CU traits during the transition from preschool to early elementary school.

Participants included 238 mothers and their preschool-aged children (Mage = 4.38 years, 52% female) assessed across three annual measurement occasions. The sample was racially and ethnically diverse (68% White, 18% Black, 14% Multiracial or another race; 16% Latinx). A multi-method, multi-informant design was used, including eye-tracking indices of children's fixation duration to angry, sad, and happy facial expressions, maternal reports of CU traits, and both maternal and paternal reports of children's psychological symptoms. Path analyses tested a prospective cascade from children's attention biases to later CU traits and adjustment difficulties, controlling for autoregressive effects and demographic covariates.

Children's greater fixation duration on angry faces at Wave 1 predicted residualized increases in CU traits at Wave 2 (b = .35, p < .05). Wave 2 CU traits, in turn, predicted residualized increases in externalizing (b = .31, p < .001) and internalizing (b = .32, p < .001) symptoms at Wave 3. Sensitivity analyses supported the robustness of these associations.

Findings highlight heightened attention to anger in early childhood as a precursor to CU traits, which later shaped emotional and behavioral maladjustment. Early assessment of affective attention may aid prevention efforts targeting socioemotional risk mechanisms in children.