psychopathic features (e.g., narcissism) over a 4-year period in non-referred youth from third to seventh grade. The apparent discrepancy of these findings with the present data is potentially explainable by the age differences across the samples such that temporal associations between different dimensions of psychopathy may vary over the course of development. For example, exposure to, or engagement in, overt antisocial behavior early in childhood may play a role in desensitizing affective experience (Hare & Neumann, 2005, 2008). In support of this hypothesis, a recent meta-analytic review of exposure to violent video games indicates that it is associated with longitudinal decreases in empathy and prosocial behavior (Anderson et al., 2010). Thus, it may behoove future longitudinal studies to examine if patterns of cross-trait/cross-time relations between psychopathy dimensions vary across different developmental epochs.
