The association between attachment and psychopathic traits

Abstract

UvA-DARE (Digital Academic Repository) The association between attachment and psychopathic traits

The Impact of Parental Incarceration on Psychopathy, Crime, and Prison Violence in Women

“…Based on trauma theory, childhood is a period where secure parental attachment is developed, and as prosocial traits develop from a secure attachment with parents (Grusec & Davido, 2010; Taylor et al, 2013), a traumatic experience of maternal incarceration may impact the child’s security, disrupting the development of attachment toward others. Indeed, psychopathy, particularly the affective features, is linked to maladaptive attachment styles and poor parental bonding (Craig et al, 2013; Gao et al, 2010; van der Zouwen et al, 2018). Research has demonstrated that maternal warmth may interrupt the development of affective psychopathic traits in youth (Kimonis et al, 2013; Waller et al, 2014).…”

Adult attachment and psychopathic traits: Investigating the role of gender, maternal and paternal factors

“…There has been a focus on studies using incarcerated populations, through the study of psychopathic scores (Bisby et al, 2017;Frodi et al, 2001) and an increase in studies conducted with non-clinical populations (e.g., Blanchard & Lyons, 2016;Mack et al, 2011), yet the results are far from conclusive. While there is support for both avoidance and anxiety attachment being associated with higher psychopathy scores in a non-clinical population (Mack et al, 2011), Van Der Zouwen et al (2018) found no significant results in community samples compared to clinical samples. Given these mixed findings, this study aims to look more into community samples and examine the significance of this association.…”

“…This finding is in-line with previous research (e.g., Blanchard & Lyons, 2016;Walsh et al, 2019) and is supported by the attachment framework (Brennan et al, 1998) considering that attachment avoidance involves fear of depending on others within interpersonal relationships, with an excessive need for self-reliance. Thus, individuals with high levels of avoidance attachment, tend to evade intimate and close relationships, use deactivating strategies that minimize the experience of rejection to protect against threats of selfimage (Fraley & Shaver, 1997;Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007), which limits their access and awareness of recognizing emotions in others making it difficult for them to empathize, key characteristics of CU traits (i.e., Henschel et al, 2020;Mack et al, 2011;Mikulincer & Shaver, 2007;Simpson et al, 2011;Van Der Zouwen et al, 2018). Taking the aforementioned findings into account, in combination with an established link between empathetic and moral disturbances with the affectiveinterpersonal features of psychopathy in both genders (Seara-Cardoso et al, 2012), it seems that attachment avoidance should be prioritized when designing interventions for individuals with CU traits within clinical settings (Daly & Mallinckrodt, 2009) in managing CU traits but also in mainstream settings (schools, parenting programs) focusing on prevention (Kyranides et al, 2018;Rose et al, 2019).…”

“…These traits have attracted much interest and as a result a specifier of limited prosocial emotions has been added to the diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders, fifth edition (DSM-5) for diagnosing conduct disorder (Fanti et al, 2018;Kimonis et al, 2015). Research has embraced the possible association between developmental factors such as attachment and psychopathic traits (Van Der Zouwen et al, 2018) with some studies showing a positive association between insecure attachment and the development of psychopathic traits in both adult and child populations (Alzeer et al, 2019;Kohlhoff et al, 2020). Despite this, there have been mixed findings in relation to the impact of gender differences on attachment contributing to CU traits and the influence of attachment figures.…”

“…The relationship between a child and a parent has been connected with emotional, social and behavioural development (e.g., Van Der Voort et al, 2014). While secure attachment is associated with the development of trust, stability and control that enables one to form healthy relationships in life (Ainsworth & Witting, 1969;Simmons et al, 2009), insecure attachment has been associated with development of unhealthy traits and behaviours such as psychopathic traits (Alzeer et al, 2019;Van Der Zouwen et al, 2018). Several retrospective studies indicate that participants scoring high on psychopathic traits and anxiety attachment dimension, recall problematic childhood environments; involving lack of affection and warmth, parental neglect or separation and severe punishment strategies used by caregivers (Frodi et al, 2001;Waller et al, 2019).…”