Emily C. Kemp

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Verified

Emily verified their affiliation via an institutional email.

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• Ph.D.
• Postdoctoral Scholar at University of California, San Diego

Objective: To assess if recent increases in cannabis use among U.S. adults have occurred among parents living with children <18Study design: We analyzed 2012-2023 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH), an annual representative survey of U.S. residents aged ≥12. We estimated the prevalence of cannabis use outcomes in parents v...

Objective: The Child and Adolescent Trauma Screen (CATS) is a widely used tool for assessing posttraumatic stress symptoms in youth; yet, very few studies have examined its factor structure, including its measurement invariance (MI) and validity, across relevant groups. This information is critical to ensuring evidence-based use of the measure whil...

Objective: Though literature supports two theorized mechanisms for the development of CU traits-deficient reactivity to and recognition of others' emotions-significant inconsistencies remain. Specifically, the association between CU traits and emotional hyporreactivity is found across development but less consistently in females, and the associatio...

Key points Question: How have trends in daily cannabis use and Cannabis Use Disorder (CUD) differed among adults with vs. without children <18 (i.e., parents vs. non-parents)? Findings: The recent increase in daily cannabis use has been nearly identical in parents vs. non-parents. In 2023, 4.9% of parents used cannabis daily, compared to 1.2% in...

Suicide poses a major public health crisis as the second leading cause of death in youth, and suicidal behaviors (e.g., attempts) are a principal reason for psychiatric hospitalization among adolescents. While research in adults largely reports the affective facet of psychopathy, characterized by callous-unemotional (CU) traits, to protect against...

Parental rules have been curiously neglected from a conceptual and measurement perspective. The first half of this paper reviews the literature to show that there is no commonly used, standardized measure of rules. Rules are typically measured either with unvalidated ad hoc standalone items or incidentally measured with 1-2 items on multi-item scal...

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits distinguish more severe antisocial individuals with distinct cognitive-affective characteristics, such as impaired facial emotion recognition, that could be important for treatment in forensic settings. Though literature reports associations between CU traits and emotion recognition deficits, findings vary by sample...

Parental rules have been curiously neglected from a conceptual and measurement perspective. The first half of this paper reviews the literature to show that there is no commonly used, standardized measure of rules. Rules are typically measured either with unvalidated ad hoc standalone items or incidentally measured with 1-2 items on multi-item scal...

This paper analyzes data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) to study trends from 2012-2023 in cannabis use among U.S. parents with children <18 years old. We show that rates of daily or near-daily cannabis use have tripled since 2012. Today, 1 in 13 parents uses cannabis on the majority of days, compared to 1 in 39 parents in 2...

Introduction: Suicide in adolescents poses a major public health crisis as the second leading cause of death in youth. Suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs) are a principal reason for psychiatric hospitalization among adolescents. Numerous studies across development have identified risk factors (e.g., depression, borderline personality (BPD) featu...

Most prior literature tends to examine potentially traumatic event (PTE) exposure as a cumulative risk, whereby all PTEs are assumed to have equal impact on substance use (SU) or be equally impacted by SU. However, this dubious assumption could be obscuring important differences in the PTE-SU relationship. We operationalize McLaughlin & Sheridan's...

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with severe conduct problems (CP) in youth. Causal theories for CU traits focus on emotion processing deficits that interfere with empathy development. However, though CU traits are consistently associated with deficits in affective empathy (i.e., emotional reactivity), the association between CU trait...

The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) is a widely used measure of callous-unemotional (CU) traits that may aid in the assessment of the diagnostic specifier “with limited prosocial emotions,” which has been added to diagnostic criteria for conduct disorder. Though there is substantial support for use of the ICU total score, the scale’s...

Youth and adults with antisocial behavior present a significant mental health concern. Elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits, characterized by deficient empathy and remorse, distinguish clinically important subgroups of antisocial individuals who present with more severe behavior and distinct cognitive-affective characteristics that may help to...

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits, one component of most definitions of psychopathy, are currently included in the diagnostic classification of severe conduct problems (CP) due to their etiological and clinical utility. Most causal theories for CU traits focus on emotional processing deficits that interfere with empathy development. However, while CU...

Emotional processing deficits are theorized to be instrumental in the development of elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits, and associated conduct problems, through impaired empathy development. Though substantial research evidences associations between CU traits and hyporreactivity in response to negative affective cues, particularly those of f...

Within the framework of the interpersonal theory of suicide, parent-child conflict in adolescence may be associated with suicidal ideation through increases in thwarted interpersonal needs (i.e., perceived burdensomeness and thwarted belongingness). Familism, a cultural value that emphasizes prioritizing familial interconnectedness and honor, may m...

Background In clinical settings, there is significant need for brief, easily-administered assessment tools for adolescent depression that can be used by mental health clinicians from a variety of training backgrounds. Existing depression screening tools do not assess for duration and consistency of symptoms, two key indicators of pathological depre...

Due to the significant impairment associated with subthreshold bipolar symptomatology and the harmful effects of delayed diagnosis, there is a great need for diagnostic tools that can facilitate early identification of bipolar spectrum disorders. The Mood Disorder Assessment Schedule (MDAS) is a newly developed measure that focuses on autonomous ch...

Objective: The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) is a widely used, comprehensive measure of callous-unemotional (CU) traits. While the ICU total score is used frequently in research, the scale's factor structure remains highly debated. Inconsistencies in past factor structure research appear to be largely due to the use of small non-re...

Doctoral Dissertation Proposal

Youth and adults who display antisocial behavior present a significant mental health concern. The presence of elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits, defined by deficient empathy and remorse, limited concern about performance, and restricted affect, distinguishes clinically important subgroups of antisocial individuals who display more severe and...

In this book, eminent scholars from varied disciplines detail how developmental science and the law shape one another across the lifespan. The chapters address fundamental questions about how human development influences laws and practices in the legal system and how the law and its practices influence development. The chapters also reveal how the...

Objective: The recent addition of the callous-unemotional (CU) traits specifier, “with Limited Prosocial Emotions (LPE),” to major classification systems has prompted the need for assessment tools that aid in the identification of elevations on these traits for diagnostic purposes. The goal of the current study was to use and evaluate multiple meth...

Winner of the Cheryl Wynne Hare Award for Best Student Research

Winner of the Cheryl Wynne Hare Award for Best Student Research

Childhood conduct disorders, a serious mental health concern, put children at risk for significant mental health problems throughout development. Elevations on callous-unemotional (CU) traits designate a subgroup of youth with conduct disorders who have unique causal processes underlying their problem behavior and are at a particularly high risk fo...

Conduct Disorder is defined as a repetitive and persistent pattern of behavior that violates the rights of others, age-appropriate social norms, and/or the law. This disorder is typically caused by multiple processes in the child and his or her social context that can negatively influence important developmental processes (e.g., identity formation,...

Objective: With the addition of the “with limited prosocial emotions” specifier within the diagnosis of conduct disorder (DSM-5) and of conduct-dissocial disorder (ICD-11) to designate those with elevated callous-unemotional traits, the authors examined the role that callous-unemotional traits play in the risk for gun carrying and gun use during a...

Youth with elevated callous-unemotional (CU) traits represent a clinically important subgroup of youth who display particularly severe conduct problems and antisocial behavior and thusly impose great costs to themselves, other individuals, and society. The recent addition of the specifier for CU traits, “with Limited Prosocial Emotions (LPE),” to m...

Poster presented at the annual conference for the American Psychology-Law Society (AP-LS) in New Orleans, LA on March 7, 2020; recipient of AP-LS Student Travel Award

Background: Metabotropic glutamate subtype 5 receptors (mGluR5) modulate synaptic transmission and may constitute an important therapeutic target in Alzheimer's disease (AD) by mediating the synaptotoxic action of amyloid-β oligomers. We utilized the positron emission tomography (PET) radioligand [18F]FPEB to investigate mGluR5 binding in early AD...

Objective: To investigate associations between statin use and cognitive change, as well as diagnostic conversion, in individuals with cognitively normal (CN) status, mild cognitive impairment (MCI), and dementia due to Alzheimer disease (AD-dementia). Methods: A multicenter cohort study with 1629 adults 48 to 91 years old with CN status, early M...

Poster presented at the international biennial conference for the Society for the Scientific Study of Psychopathy (SSSP), Las Vegas, NV, USA; finalist for the Cheryl Wynne Hare Award for Best Student Research

Common theoretical models of risky and impulsive behaviors suggest that individuals engage in risky behavior to avoid negative affect or enhance positive affect. However, little research has been done to identify person-centered affective profiles of risky and impulsive behavior, and delineate the individual differences across these profiles. The p...

Background: Alzheimer's disease (AD) is characterized not only by cognitive and functional decline, but also often by the presence of neuropsychiatric symptoms. Apathy, which can be defined as a lack of motivation, is one of the most prevalent neuropsychiatric symptoms in AD and typically leads to a worse quality of life and greater burden for car...

Objective To investigate optimal cutoff scores and the effects of normative adjustments on the performance of the Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) as a screening instrument for Mild Cognitive Impairment (MCI) and dementia due to Alzheimer's disease (AD-dementia). Methods 499 adults 48 to 91 years-old enrolled in the Alzheimer's Disease Neuroim...

Background: We investigated the relationship between sleep disturbance and cognitive decline or clinical conversion in individuals with normal cognition (CN), as well as those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) and dementia due to Alzheimer disease (AD-dementia). Methods: Secondary analysis of 1,629 adults between 48 and 91 years of age with u...