Finally, trait anxiety is associated with better decision-making on lab tasks that reliably differentiate between externalizing samples and controls ( Haines et al., 2020).

By adolescence, comorbid anxiety also predicts better peer relations, fewer police contacts, and lower rates of aggression ( Walker et al., 1991). In contrast, comorbid anxiety in childhood-despite its associations with intrapersonal distress-predicts better responses to PT among children with early onset CPs (see Beauchaine et al., 2005). Males with CPs who experience little trait anxiety, as indicated by callous-unemotional and psychopathic traits, also show blunted amygdalar responses to empathy- and fear-eliciting stimuli, and engage in higher rates of both current and future delinquency (e.g., Blair, 2013 Frick et al., 2014). Trait anxiety must be considered when discussing treatments for CPs because it modulates trait impulsivity in both real-world and laboratory settings. Through direct inputs and modulating interconnections with the striatum, these structures affect reward learning, punishment sensitivity, and acquisition of other operant responses ( Dong et al., 2017). However, its neural substrates are distributed across a different brain network including the hippocampus, periaqueductal gray, medial hypothalamus, amygdala, and broader septohippocampal system ( Gray and McNaughton, 2000). Like trait impulsivity, trait anxiety is highly heritable (e.g., Franić et al., 2010). Those who score high on trait anxiety are behaviorally inhibited, wary in novel situations, and tend toward precaution over risk-taking ( Corr and McNaughton, 2012). Trait anxiety is also a normally distributed individual difference that affects expression of CPs.

Beauchaine, in Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology, 2020 Trait Anxiety

Trait anxiety test