Wczesne predyktory psychopatii – analiza stanu i kierunków badań psychopatii dzieci i młodzieży

The aim of this article is to present the concept of child and adolescent psychopathy and to discuss its utility in scientific research and clinical practice, including early diagnosis and intervention. The authors review the literature on the subject, showing the current directions in research on early manifestations of psychopathy in children and adolescents, and the reasons for conducting empirical studies in this field; they also indicate the associated problems of methodological and ethical nature. This article is an attempt to examine the possibility of identifying early predictors of psychopathy, indicating the need for further investigation of this construct towards building a developmental model of psychopathy. The article shows the complexity and variety of directions that make up the mainstream of theoretical and empirical research on psychopathy in children and adolescents. It also points to the value of adopting a general theoretical model that allows for the integration of research results and to the potential of the paradigm of developmental psychopathology as the most promising framework for research in this area.