Children with secondary variants of CU traits exhibit preferential looking toward emotional female faces: evidence for gender-specific approach tendencies

Abstract Children and adolescents with higher individual expression of CU traits have been shown to have aberrant patterns of approach-avoidance behavior in that they show a lack of avoidance. Additionally, approach-avoidance tendencies have been documented in the context of the angry-male/happy-female bias, where people tend to associate angry expressions with masculine faces (typically expected avoidance), and happy or surprised expressions with feminine faces (typically expected approach; Becker et al., 2007). The present eye-tracking study sought to investigate the potential existence of the gender-expression recognition bias in a sample of children with varying levels of CU traits. The sample consisted of 153 children (M = 9.97; SD: 1.28, min: 7.5; max: 49.0% girls). Results show that children with secondary variants of CU traits spent on average more time looking toward the happy and angry female faces compared to male faces in comparison to the low-risk, anxious, and primary CU groups. The study provides novel insights into the existence of elevated levels of gender-specific approach tendencies in children with secondary CU traits that are documented with preferential looking towards positively and negatively charged female faces.