Stability and predictors of psychopathic traits from mid‐adolescence through early adulthood

Abstract

High levels of psychopathic traits in youth are associated with multiple negative outcomes including substance misuse, aggressive behavior, and criminality. Evidence regarding stability of psychopathic traits is contradictory. No previous study has examined long-term stability of psychopathic traits assessed with validated clinical measures. The present study examined the stability of psychopathic traits from mid-adolescence to early adulthood and explored adolescent factors that predicted psychopathic traits five years later. The sample included 99 women and 81 men who had consulted a clinic for substance misuse in adolescence. At an average age of 16.8 years, the adolescents were assessed using the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV) and five years later using the PCL-Revised (PCL-R). Additionally, extensive clinical assessments of the adolescents and their parents were completed in mid-adolescence. Among both females and males, moderate to high rank-order stability was observed for total PCL and facet scores. Among both females and males, there was a decrease in the mean total PCL score, interpersonal facet score, affective facet score, and lifestyle facet score. However, the great majority of females and males showed no change in psychopathy scores over the five-year period as indicated by the Reliable Change Index. Despite the measures of multiple family and individual factors in adolescence, only aggressive behavior and male sex predicted PCL-R total scores in early adulthood after taking account of PCL:YV scores. Taken together, these results from a sample who engaged in antisocial behavior in adolescence suggest that factors promoting high psychopathy scores act early in life.

White matter correlates of psychopathic traits in a female community sample

“…A second limitation of the present study was that psychopathy among some participants was assessed 2 years prior to the scan. However, evidence shows stability of scores from mid-adolescence to adulthood ( McMahon et al , 2010 ; Hemphälä and Hodgins, 2014 ; Hemphälä et al , 2015 ). At the imaging resolution used in the present study, abnormalities of the fornix and stria terminalis may not have been distinguishable.…”

“…Psychopathy comprises four facets of personality and behavior: an interpersonal facet indexing conning, manipulation, and deceitfulness; an affective facet indexing callousness, lack of empathy and guilt, and failure to take responsibility for one’s own actions; a life-style facet indexing risk-taking, rebelliousness, and impulsivity; and one facet indexing antisocial behavior ( Hare, 2003 ). These facets vary dimensionally in the population ( Guay et al , 2007 ), remain relatively stable from childhood through early adulthood and predict multiple adverse psychosocial and mental health outcomes, and criminal offending, over and above conduct problems ( McMahon et al , 2010 ; Hemphälä and Hodgins, 2014 ; Hemphälä et al , 2015 ; Waller et al , 2016 ). High scores on all four facets of the Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) ( Hare, 2003 ) identify the syndrome of psychopathy.…”

A Systematic Literature Review of Neuroimaging of Psychopathic Traits

“…The display of psychopathic behaviors is a reliable predictor for poor academic achievement, criminality, behavioral problems, and for adverse psychosocial consequences and mental health (8,9). The prevalence of psychopathy is approximately 1% in the general population (10,11), 3% in forensic population (12), 4% amongst corporate managers (13), and 20% in prison population (14).…”

Victimization and psychopathic features in a population-based sample of Finnish adolescents

“…By Table 3 Linear regression models of different type of recent (in the last 12 months) victimization predicting APSD-SR total scores in the total sample (n = 4855). assessing a sample of adolescents from juvenile substance misuse clinic, Hemphala et al (2015) reported that childhood physical abuse was not associated with PCL-R scores in youth. Our study contributes to the present literature by showing that severe forms of victimization experiences (i.e.…”

“…In addition, severely abused juvenile offenders score high on psychopathy measures (Campbell et al, 2004;Krischer & Sevecke, 2008;Odgers et al, 2005). However, some contradictory findings also exist (Hemphala, Kosson, Westerman, & Hodgins, 2015). By Table 3 Linear regression models of different type of recent (in the last 12 months) victimization predicting APSD-SR total scores in the total sample (n = 4855).…”