Browsing by Subject "Psychopathy"
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Item Interview assessment of boldness: construct validity and empirical links to psychopathy and fearlessness.(2009-08) Hall, Jason RobertThe triarchic model of psychopathy (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, in press) conceptualizes this intriguing disorder in terms of three distinct elemental phenotypes: disinhibition, reflecting tendencies toward deficient behavioral control and externalizing psychopathology; meanness, reflecting deliberate cruelty and agentic exploitation of others; and boldness, reflecting resilience to life stress, calmness in the face of threat, and social dominance. The predominant instrument for assessing criminal psychopathy, Hare's (1991, 2003) Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), appears to tap the disinhibition and meanness facets of psychopathy directly and substantially, but captures boldness only indirectly and to a modest degree. Given its reliance on antisocially deviant indicators, the PCL-R is also ill-suited to investigation of non-criminal psychopathy in community settings. Thus, the primary aim of the present study was to evaluate the construct validity and neurobiological correlates of a newly-developed interview measure of the phenotypic boldness construct. Relationships between the Boldness Interview (BI) and multi-modal measures of psychopathy, externalizing psychopathology, and personality traits with theoretical or empirical links to the boldness construct were investigated in a sample of incarcerated adult males. The present study also investigated relationships between the BI measure and emotional modulation of the startle blink reflex - a well-validated physiological measure of fear reactivity that has previously been linked to the interpersonal-affective features of PCL-R psychopathy - in a picture-viewing paradigm. Results strongly supported the construct validity of the BI. Consistent with theory and prediction, BI total scores were: substantially and positively related to the PCL-R Interpersonal facet, the fearless dominance factor of the self-report Psychopathic Personality Inventory (Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996), and self-reported narcissism, thrill-seeking, and dominance; negatively related to self-report measures of harm avoidance, trait anxiety, fear, and internalizing symptoms; and largely unrelated to externalizing psychopathology. Total scores on the BI were also related to reduced startle amplitude during aversive pictures in the picture-viewing paradigm. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for the assessment and conceptualization of psychopathy (particularly non-criminal psychopathy) as well as the neurobiological underpinnings of the disorder.Item Measuring psychopathy traits and antisocial behaviors in three groups of male adolescent sex offenders and male non-sexual delinquents.(2010-11) Netland, Jason DavidThe main goal of this study was to determine if there are differences in four groups of male adolescents (i.e. child sex offenders, peer/adult sex offenders, crossover sex offenders, and non-sex delinquents) in their levels of psychopathy traits (i.e. grandiosity, impulsivity, lack of empathy, interpersonally exploitative, and risk taking) and antisocial behaviors. The non-sex delinquents group was found to have significantly higher levels of grandiosity and lack of empathy than the three sex offender groups. The three sex offender groups were found to have significantly higher levels of antisocial behavior than the non-sex delinquent group. A confirmatory factor analysis using the Multidimensional Inventory of Development, Sex and Aggression (MIDSA; MIDSA Clinical Manual, 2007) scales for psychopathy traits and institutional record review measures of antisocial behavior provided no evidence for adequate fit for the two, three, or four-latent factor models of psychopathy.