Psychopaths

BACKGROUND AND METHODS: The aim of this systematic review was to synthesise research examining the relationship between autism and psychopathy to: (a) better understand the relationship between these two constructs, and (b) describe the clinical manifestation of the two when they co-occur. A systematic search of the literature returned 36 studies. RESULTS: Across all ages, autistic individuals and those with elevated autistic traits but no autistic diagnoses appeared to have increased callous and unemotional traits or psychopathy relative to the general population...

Understanding the profiles of sexual offenders, such as the presence of psychopathic traits, is key to preventing future sexual crimes. The self-report psychopathy-III (SRP-III) is a tool used to assess the characteristics of psychopathy, but improvements on its interpretation are required to maximize its precision. The SRP-III can be interpreted by examining the scores on each of the four facets (interpersonal manipulation, callous affect, erratic lifestyle, antisocial behavior), on each of two factors (factor 1, factor 2), or by examining the total score...

OBJECTIVE: The Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) instruments have a long history with respect to the assessment of psychopathic personality traits. The most recent version, the MMPI-3, should be in a good position to continue this tradition, and the aim of the current research was to evaluate its scales for this purpose. We examined, on the basis of previous research, how well conceptually relevant MMPI-3 scales mapped onto dominant contemporary psychopathy models: the traditional three-factor model and triarchic psychopathy model...

OBJECTIVES: Numerous studies show that a high level of psychopathic traits in youth is related to the propensity to use various types and forms of aggression. The presented study focuses on the relations between psychopathy and aggression, both indirect (relational) and direct in this age group. The triarchic model of psychopathy was used, according to which psychopathy is described as a configuration of boldness, meanness and disinhibition. It was assumed that boldness would be a predictor for indirect aggression and disinhibition - for the direct forms of aggressive behaviors...

There has been an increase in female incarcerated offenders nationally and internationally. Despite this trend, literature and research on female offenders remain limited compared to their male counterparts. Evidence of the relationship between certain personality disorders and offending behaviour has led numerous countries to prioritise identifying and assessing personality disorders among the offender population. Psychopathic personality traits may contribute to women's risk factors for expressing antisocial behaviours, resulting in their potential future incarceration...

OBJECTIVE: Despite accumulating evidence of significant albeit moderate associations between childhood trauma and psychopathy, little is known about the potential moderators of these associations. To advance knowledge in this area, the present study investigated the moderating role of resilience in the childhood trauma-psychopathy link. METHOD: A community sample of 521 adult participants from the Netherlands (40.1% men; M age = 35.27 years, SD = 15.99) completed two self-report questionnaires measuring psychopathic personality traits: a self-report measure of resilience and a retrospective measure of childhood traumatic experiences...

AIM: Child-to-parent offenders (CPOs) are commonly specialist offenders and with high rates of recidivism. Thus, a field study was designed to estimate the prevalence of recidivism in the reference measures of recidivism i.e., dangerousness, risk factors and psychopathy, and compare CPOs with non-child-to-parent juvenile offenders (non-CPOs). METHOD: A total of 136 juvenile offenders (76.5% boys), 76 CPOs and 60 non-CPOs, aged from 14 to 18 years old, were measured in terms of dangerousness, risk factors and psychopathic traits...

OBJECTIVE: This mixed methods study examined depictions of spirituality among people with psychosis in influential television programming. Spirituality is a central strength for many people with psychosis. Yet, despite the important role media plays in shaping perceptions, little research has examined the intersection between spirituality and psychosis in popular media. METHODS: To address this gap, we conducted a content analysis of the 50 most viewed primetime fictional television shows over a 10-year period as determined by the Nielsen rating organization...

Psychopathy is a multifaceted personality disorder characterized by distinct affective/interpersonal traits, including callousness-unemotionality/meanness, which are often considered the hallmarks of empathic deficits. It has been posited that the processing of others' pain could play an important role in empathy capabilities. This study aimed to investigate the influence of perspective taking on electrocortical responses during pain processing in relation to psychopathic callousness. The Late Positive Potential (LPP) -a well-established electrophysiological indicator of sustained attention to motivationally significant stimuli- was measured while 100 female undergraduates viewed images depicting bodily injuries while adopting an imagine-self or an imagine-other perspective...

Psychopathic traits have been associated with rearrest in adolescents involved in the criminal legal system. Much of the prior work has focused on White samples, short follow-up windows, and relatively low-risk youth. The current study aimed to evaluate the utility of the Hare Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV) for predicting general and violent felony recidivism in a large sample of high-risk, predominantly Hispanic/Latino, male adolescents (n = 254) with a five-year follow-up period...

Childhood maltreatment is the strongest predictor of psychopathology and personality disorders across the lifespan and is strongly associated with a variety of psychological problems, namely, mood and anxiety disorders, behavioral and personality disorders, substance abuse, aggression, and self-harm. In this study, we aim to provide a comprehensive picture of the interplay between different traits of psychopathy and distinct dimensions of childhood maltreatment, emotion regulation, and aggression. Using a cross-sectional design, we employed correlational network analysis to explore the nomological network of psychopathy and provide a sample-based estimate of the population parameters reflecting the direction, strength, and patterns of relationships between variables...

This study aims to investigate the relationship between risky sexual behavior (RSB) and psychopathy in a non-clinical sample of 714 Hong Kong adults, shedding light on sex differences. Our findings reveal that males exhibit significantly higher mean levels of RSB (general, penetrative, and nonpenetrative), as well as egocentric (Factor 1) and callous (Factor 3) traits of psychopathy, along with increased sexual desire compared to females. Regression analyses indicate that elevated levels of antisociality (Factor 2) and callousness (Factor 3) traits of psychopathy, along with sexual desire, emerge as significant risk factors for engaging in general, penetrative, and nonpenetrative RSB...

The Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD; Salekin & Hare, 2016) is a new self-report and informant measure designed to assess psychopathic characteristic domains along with symptoms of conduct disorder in youth. Previous factor analytic studies on the PSCD have found that the items are accounted for by a four-factor model reflecting grandiose-manipulative, callous-unemotional, daring-impulsive, and conduct disorder (CD) symptoms. The present study examined the factor structure, psychometric properties, and criterion-related validity of the parent-report version of the PSCD (PSCD-P) in a nationally representative U...

Past research has speculated that using grandiose-manipulative (GM) and daring-impulsive (DI) traits, rather than solely callous-unemotional (CU) traits, could better inform subtyping youths with behavioral problems. However, this approach remains largely untested. To further enhance our understanding of this matter, the current study utilized self-report (n = 2,381) and parent-report (n = 1,846) data to examine the utility of three psychopathic dimensions as specifiers for oppositional defiant problems (ODP)...

This study examines the initiation and administration of Mercy Hospital in Republican Shanghai. It explains the protracted negotiations that underpinned the collaboration between the Chinese founder Lu Bohong, the Shanghai Municipal Council (SMC) of the International Settlement and the Municipal Administration (FMA) of the French Concession. Despite mutual needs for a psychiatric hospital, the collaboration was undermined by disputes over funding shares and administrative direction. While Lu expected a symbolic modern philanthropy, the SMC and FMA saw it as an economic tool to relieve the responsibility of regulating refugees and the increasing mental patients...

BACKGROUND: Previous research has suggested that manipulation and callousness are central to Dark Triad traits, but it has not identified which specific manifestations are expressed across various countries. OBJECTIVE: This study aimed to identify the core and overlapping manifestations of Dark Triad traits across 10 countries. METHODS: We used the Short Dark Triad (SD3) scale and assessed a sample of 8093 participants (59.7% women, M(age) = 32...

BACKGROUND: The triarchic model (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) conceptualizes psychopathy as a multidimensional construct encompassing three biobehavioral dimensions: meanness, boldness, and disinhibition. Meanness entails low empathy, shallow affect, and lack of remorse, and is associated with poor facial emotion recognition; however, the mechanistic processes contributing to these deficits are unclear. Emotional face processing can be examined on a neurophysiological level using event-related potentials (ERPs) such as N170, P200, and LPP...

Researchers have suggested that psychopathic traits among adults may be, at least in part, an adaptive and/or a learned response for securing socially adaptive outcomes in adverse environments, but there is a lack of developmental evidence supporting this hypothesis among adolescents. Therefore, we examined the indirect links from self-perceived adverse environments (parental neglect, socioeconomic status, school competition, neighborhood violence) to evolutionarily relevant social outcomes (social power, dating behavior) through psychopathic traits...

Studies have reported positive associations between youth psychopathy scores and measures of 'fearlessness'. However, prior studies modified fearlessness items to be age appropriate, shifting from assessing hypothetical, extreme forms of physical risk-taking (e.g., flying an airplane) to normative risk-taking (e.g., riding bicycles downhill). We hypothesize that associations between youth psychopathy scores and alternative forms of sensation seeking (i.e., Disinhibition) have been conflated under a false fearlessness label...

Children and adolescents with psychopathic traits show deficits in emotion recognition, but there is no consensus as to the extent of their generalizability or about the variables that may be moderating the process. The present Systematic Review brings together the existing scientific corpus on the subject and attempts to answer these questions through an exhaustive review of the existing literature according to PRISMA 2020 statement. Results confirmed the existence of pervasive deficits in emotion recognition and, more specifically, on distress emotions (e...