To understand the etiology of psychopathic personality traits and thus in the long run to be able to develop successful prevention, a first step is to find out what role genetic and environmental effects play. A meta-review of 15 twin studies (N=26, 981), was conducted to estimate the magnitude of genetic and environmental influences on psychopathic personality traits. The results show that additive genetic (heritable) factors and non-shared environmental factors each explain 50% of the variance in psychopathic personality traits, while shared environmental factors were of no importance. Measure, informant, age, and sex were investigated as potential moderators showing that informant had an impact on the findings. This meta-analysis provides a structured synthesis of the relative genetic and environmental contributions in psychopathic personality traits through various stages of development and across sex. / För att förstå etiologin av psykopatiska personlighetsdrag och därmed i det långa loppet kunna utveckla framgångsrik prevention, är ett första steg att klargöra vilken roll genetiska och miljömässiga effekter spelar. En meta-översikt på 15 tvillingstudier (N=26,981), genomfördes för att uppskatta i vilken grad genetiska och miljömässiga faktorer påverkar psykopatiska personlighetsdrag. Resultaten visade att additiva genetiska (ärftliga) och unika miljömässiga faktorer förklarar 50% var av variansen i psykopatiska personlighetsdrag, medan delade miljömässiga faktorer inte var av betydelse. Mått, informant, ålder och kön undersöktes som potentiella moderatorer och visade att informant påverkade resultaten. Denna meta-analys ger en strukturerad syntes av de relativa genetiska och miljömässiga bidrag som påverkar psykopatiska personlighetsdrag genom olika utvecklingsstadier och mellan könen.

Psychopathy is found in incarcerated populations and in the general population, among men and women. This study investigated if there were any gender differences between men and women with heightened levels of psychopathic traits regarding psychopathy factor scores, criminality, aggression and victimization. A randomized sample of 2500 mixed-sex (52.6 % women) participants (M=22.15; SD=1.38) from the general population, aged 20-24, was used. Results showed that women with psychopathic personality traits had significantly higher behavioral tendencies (e.g., impulsivity) on psychopathy than men with psychopathic personality traits. Men scored higher on violent criminal offences and criminal versatility and men and women differed in aggressive behavior and victimization. Gender differences in psychopathy features may create different needs for treatment. / Personer med psykopati finns både bland kliniska populationer och bland normalpopulationen, bland män och kvinnor. Den här studien undersökte om det fanns könsskillnader mellan män och kvinnor med förhöjda nivåer av psykopatiska drag när det gäller psykopatifaktorer, kriminalitet, aggression och utsatthet. Ett slumpmässigt urval från normalpopulationen med både män och kvinnor (52,6 %), ålder 20-24 år (M=22,15; SD=1,38), användes. Resultaten visade att kvinnor med psykopatiska egenskaper har signifikant högre beteendemässiga drag av psykopati än män med psykopatiska egenskaper. Män uppvisade högre nivåer av våldsam kriminalitet och mångfald i brott. Män och kvinnor med psykopatisk personlighet uppvisade olika aggressiva beteenden och rapporterade olika typer av utsatthet. Könsskillnader i psykopatiska egenskaper kan skapa olika behov av behandling.

Psychopathy is a severe personality disorder associated with a range of affective, interpersonal, and behavioural abnormalities. Evidence suggests that psychopaths show marked deficits in processing emotional information, although it is unclear whether they also show more general deficits in error monitoring, attention allocation and response control. It is also unclear whether any variation in neurophysiological performance is also reflected in subclinical populations. In this thesis, event-related potentials (ERPs) were used to examine these issues and involved two separate samples. The first included incarcerated offenders with a range of scores on the Hare Psychopathy Checklist –Revised (PCL-R) and non-offender (staff) controls. The second included a large group of healthy undergraduate males with a full range on scores on the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP-III). Error monitoring was examined in both samples using a standard letter-flanker task and a modified version of the task in which faces with angry or fearful expressions were used instead of the usual letter stimuli. In general, psychopathy in both samples was associated with attenuated ERN amplitudes on the face flanker task only. Source modeling of the ERN indicated that, while the ERN is generally modeled as having a dipole in the ACC, the psychopath group showed no evidence of ACC activity in this region in conjunction with face-flanker errors. These data suggest that the affect-based neurophysiological deficits associated with psychopathy in the clinical range are observed in a graduated fashion among subclinical samples. Inhibitory control processes were also examined in the incarcerated group using the inhibitory N2 and anteriorized P3 as indices of inhibitory processes evident in correctly withholding prepotent response tendencies on a Go-NoGo task. Despite the common assumption that poor inhibitory control is a central aspect of psychopathy, there was no sign that those at higher levels of psychopathy showed any inhibitory control problems and they produced a robust NoGo N2 and P3. In fact, there were signs that the incarcerated offenders who were low on psychopathy were more likely to produce diminished inhibitory-related components. Finally, years of controversy regarding attention allocation deficits in psychopathy was addressed by collecting standard P3 components during a traditional visual oddball task in the university sample. Behavioural response and P3 amplitudes were unrelated to psychopathy. However, consistent with data from incarcerated samples, higher scores on psychopathy were associated with larger amplitude P2 and N5 responses to target relative to nontarget stimuli, again suggesting some continuity with respect to a distinct, although not necessarily deficient, attentional style at subclinical levels of psychopathy. In general, across these four data sets, the only clear evidence of impaired processing involved a reduced error-monitoring response during the face-flanker task when emotional stimuli formed the basis of the required discrimination and this reduced response was found to vary with the degree of psychopathy even within a subclinical range. These findings support a model of psychopathy involving limbic and paralimbic structures rather than a general reduction in neural function affecting error monitoring, attention allocation and response control.

For over half of a century, social and behavioral scientists have been investigating the construct of psychopathy. Even so, psychopathy is still a highly misunderstood personality construct. Even though it has been estimated that psychopaths make up only about 1% of the general population, they are believed to consist of 15-25% of the prison population (Hare, 1996). However, not all psychopaths are in prison. Psychopaths can also be found in such fields as the legal profession, the business world and in politics (Babiak, 1995). In terms of criminal behaviors, psychopaths are arrested at earlier ages, have a higher rate of offending, commit a wider array of offenses, are more likely to have used weapons and threatened violence, and are more likely to have used violence (Hart and Hare, 1997; Hare and McPherson, 1984; Serin, 1991; Wong, 1985). Also, once released from an institution, rates of recidivism for psychopaths are found to be higher than those for other criminals regarding both violent and FTSnon-violent criminal acts (Hemphill, Hare & Wong, 1998). Therefore, the societal importance of the psychopathy construct demanded that more research be conducted to better understand its underlying etiology, potential variants in typology, clinical course and potential treatment. Prior theories have proposed subtypes of psychopathy based on cognitive variables (passive avoidance errors) and on physiological variables (BIS/BAS) and on environmental variables (supportive upbringing or not). This study utilized self-report measures to assess the presence of psychopathy and to test the validity of the cognitive and physiological explanations for subtypes of psychopathy. A cognitive dissonance task tested the validity of the physiological theory and an alteration of a punishment task which increases the degree and strength of punishment tested the cognitive theory. Further, for the first time the construct of optimism was tested to determine it's role in parsing out two types of psychopathy.

Social learning theory continues to be one of the most enduring theories of crime. Psychological criminology, on the other hand, tends to explain crime in terms of behavioral propensities. This research is specifically focused on the generality of social learning theory as it varies across a measure of criminal propensity- in this case, psychopathy. Prior studies have tested various theories with the use of measures of propensity, but the theory is rarely social learning, and the measure of propensity has never been psychopathy. The current study examines three components of social learning theory (definitions, differential association, and differential reinforcement) to determine whether or not its influence is dependent on an individual's level of psychopathy. Data used in this research is from the Pathways to Desistance Project, a serious juvenile delinquent sample. Standard ordinary least-squares and Tobit regressions (a method of analyses designed to correct for linear relationships between variables when there is censoring in the dependent variable) are modeled. Results indicate that definitions, differential association, differential reinforcement, and both measures of psychopathy exerted significant main effects on antisocial behavior. In addition, the social learning variables interacted differently across varying levels of psychopathy. Conclusions and policy implications for future social science research are discussed within.

Les Autochtones sont surreprésentés dans le système judiciaire canadien. Il a été constaté que certains individus ayant survécu à la colonisation développent un stress acculturatif, dont les effets se manifestent aux niveaux physique, psychologique et social (Berry et Annis, 1974). L'augmentation des conduites dysfonctionnelles et violentes consiste une des conséquences spécifiques pouvant résulter de ce stress (Kirmayer, Corin, Corriveau, & Fletcher, 1993). Selon les auteurs ayant étudié le crime chez les Autochtones, les facteurs statiques semblent être similaires pour les criminels non Autochtones et les Autochtones, mais ils sont présents à un degré plus intense chez ces derniers. De plus, les mêmes facteurs étiologiques sont identifiés dans les deux groupes. Parmi ceux-ci, la présence de traits de personnalité antisociale paraît prédire le développement de futurs comportements criminels. À partir des données recueillies pour un projet annexe, le Childhood Adolescent Taxon Scale a été complété pour 95 hommes Inuit vivant dans différentes communautés du Nunavut. Cette échelle permet le dépistage du deuxième facteur psychopathique identifié par Harpur, Hare et Hakstian (1989), majoritairement induit par les circonstances environnementales de l’individu. En comparaison avec la population générale canadienne, il a été démontré dans cette étude que le taux de psychopathie secondaire est plus élevé dans la population autochtone. Ces résultats mettent en évidence les effets destructeurs du mode de vie de ce peuple (imposé lors de la colonisation) et nous informent sur les cibles d’interventions futures. / Aboriginal people are overrepresented in the Canadian judicial system. It has been noted that individuals having survived colonization sometimes develop acculturative stress, whose effects manifest themselves on the physical, psychological and social levels (Berry and Annis, 1974). An increase in dysfunctional and violent conduct is one of the specific consequences of acculturative stress (Kirmayer, Corin, Corriveau, & Fletcher, 1993). According to authors having studied crime in the Aboriginal population, static factors seem to be similar for non-Aboriginal and Aboriginal criminals, but are more intensely present in the latter group. Furthermore, the same etiological factors have been identified to explain crime in these two groups. Among these, the presence of antisocial personality traits seems to be the most predictive of future criminal behavior. In this study, the Childhood Adolescent Taxon Scale was completed for 95 Inuit men living in different communities in Nunavut. This scale allows for the detection of the second psychopathic taxon identified by Harpur, Hare and Hakstian (1989), which is mostly induced by environmental circumstances. The results of this study demonstrate that the prevalence rate of secondary psychopathy is higher in the Aboriginal population when compared to general Canadian statistics. These results highlight the destructive consequences of modern day life as it is in Aboriginal communities (as was imposed during colonization) and can help identify targets for future interventions.

Mémoire numérisé par la Division de la gestion de documents et des archives de l'Université de Montréal

The prediction of adolescents' antisocial behavior was central to this investigation. Specifically, use of the Psychopathy Checklist, Revised (PCL) as a predictor of the treatment outcome of a residential unit for juvenile delinquents was evaluated. Toward this goal, three foci guided hypothesis generation and testing. Multiple hypotheses were tested to consider (a) the predictive validity of the PCL, (b) the match between the PCL and Moffitt's (1993b) taxonomy of antisocial behavior and (c) the utility of the PCL as a selection instrument for assignment of juvenile delinquents to behavioral residential unit treatment. Subjects consisted of 80 adolescent, racially-mixed males (28 unit residents, 52 high school students).Predictive validity was evidenced for criteria consisting of future incarceration and future violent and nonviolent criminal offenses committed over the year following PCL administration. Prediction of future incarceration produced results similar to those found with adult prisoners (80% of psychopaths and 21% of nonpsychopaths were incarcerated). Moreover, PCL scores accounted for 26% of the variability in violent offenses and 40% of the variability of nonviolent offenses committed by subjects during the follow-up year.The match between Moffitt's taxonomy of antisocial behavior and the PCL was evidenced by data gathered on those subjects who were known to have engaged in antisocial behavior (N=71). The constructs that Moffitt (1993b) argued would mediate antisocial behavior and are measured with PCL items (such as neuropsychological executive functioning) significantly improved the prediction of future antisocial behavior over that accounted for by Moffitt's taxonomy. In fact, PCL items accounted for more unique variability in future offenses committed than did Moffitt's taxonomy.Utility analyses indicated that the PCL could be used to improve the prevention of success-improbable delinquents from being assigned residential treatment. Dollar value utility analysis indicated that over $5800 per resident could be reallocated to other interventions by assigning success-improbable delinquents to other treatments. Doing so was projected to result in over $175,000 less to be spent on treating unsuccessful residents. It was also argued that utility analysis figures could be to argue for development of alternative programs for delinquents who would probably be unsuccessful in the residential unit program. Residents who presented with internalized psychiatric disorders were not identified using the proposed cutoff score. Therefore, it was recommended that a second test be used to detect delinquents in need of in-patient psychiatric care. / Department of Educational Psychology

Previous literature has identified links between psychopathic trait severity and disturbed styles of attachment on sexual outcomes in adulthood. However, few studies have investigated these domains within one design. Therefore, it is unclear how they may influence each other, given that an association between attachment styles and psychopathic traits has also been previously documented. This study sought to explore the possible role of psychopathic traits upon the association between attachment and sexual outcomes. Participants were sampled from an undergraduate student population at a large university. Data were analyzed using correlational and hierarchical regression analyses, as well as two exploratory path models. Analyses suggested that aspects of attachment and psychopathic trait severity were significantly associated with each other and differentially predicted certain sexual outcomes. Furthermore, results indicated that the effects of attachment avoidance on sexual outcomes were mediated by Factor 1 traits of psychopathy, while the effects of attachment anxiety were mediated by Factor 2 traits. Additionally, it was found that attachment style was linked with contempt, and this was further linked to disturbances in sexual outcomes, which is a novel finding. Implications of the findings, limitations, and future directions are discussed.

Fundação de Amparo a Pesquisa no Estado do Rio Grande do Sul / This is a quantitative descriptive study, and it aimed to evaluate the levels of correlation between depression, anxiety and psychopathy traits in 25 prisoners in a city of Rio Grande do Sul. To collect the data, we used Beck Depression Inventory and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BDI and BAI), as well as the Hare Psychopathy Scale. We used the Hare Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), according to studies already conducted in Brazil. The interviews were conducted individually in a prison house. As main results, we found statistically significant correlation between depression and anxiety, and the total score of psychopathy was not correlated with anxiety, only with depression. On the other hand, the Factor 2 of the Scale, related to the behavioral aspect of the disorder, correlated with anxiety and depression. Therefore, we concluded that although some data were consistent with the literature, this research has shown results which were not obtained in previous studies. Thus, it highlights the need for further studies in the area. / O presente estudo se caracteriza como descritivo quantitativo que objetivou avaliar os níveis de correlação entre depressão, ansiedade e traços de psicopatia em 25 prisioneiros de um município do Rio Grande do Sul. Para a coleta de dados, foram utilizados os Inventários de Depressão e Ansiedade Beck (BDI e BAI) e a Escala Hare para psicopatia. Foi utilizado o Modelo de Dois Fatores da Escala (PCL-R), de acordo com estudos já feitos no Brasil. As entrevistas foram realizadas nas dependências de uma instituição prisional de forma individual. Como principais resultados, foi encontrada correlação estatisticamente significativa entre depressão e ansiedade, sendo que o escore total de psicopatia não se correlacionou com a ansiedade, somente com a depressão. Por outro lado, o Fator 2 da Escala, referente ao aspecto comportamental do transtorno, apresentou correlação com a ansiedade e a depressão. Assim, conclui-se que, embora alguns dados tenham sido concordantes com a literatura, a pesquisa apresentou resultados não encontrados em estudos anteriores. Dessa forma, evidencia-se a necessidade de realizar novos estudos na área.