Why psychopathy matters: Implications for public health and violence prevention

Abstract

Psychopathy is an early-appearing risk factor for severe and chronic violence. The violence largely attributable to psychopathy constitutes a substantial portion of the societal burden to the public health and criminal justice systems, and thus necessitates significant attention from prevention experts. Yet, despite a vast base of research in psychology and criminology, the public health approach to violence has generally neglected to consider this key variable. Fundamentally, the public health approach to violence prevention is focused on achieving change at the population level to provide the most benefit to the maximum number of people. Increasing attention to the individual-level factor of psychopathy in public health could improve our ability to reduce violence at the community and societal levels. We conclude that the research literature on psychopathy points to a pressing need for a broad-based public health approach with a focus on primary prevention. Further, we consider how measuring psychopathy in public health research may benefit violence prevention, and ultimately society, in general.

The role of psychopathic traits among intimate partner-violent men: A systematic review

“…Among non-convicted samples, psychopathy did not predict IPV perpetration (partner-violent men displayed as many psychopathic traits as non-IPV men; Babcock et al, 2005Babcock et al, , 2008Holtzworth-Munroe et al, 2000;Walsh et al, 2010). However, IPV men were initially more generally violent than non-IPV men, so these results could be biased by the strong association between psychopathy and violence historically documented in the literature (Hecht et al, 2016;Reidy et al, 2015) and not reflect the specific relationship between psychopathy and violent behavior against a partner. Instead, among convicted samples matched in their violence level (namely, batterers compared with other violent offenders), the results suggested that batterers displayed as many core psychopathic features as the other violent offenders (Hornsveld et al, 2008) but fewer behavioral psychopathic traits than the other violent offenders (Hornsveld et al, 2008;Swogger et al, 2007).…”

“…Despite a large body of literature suggesting the strong predictive power of psychopathy on dangerousnessviolent and aggressive behavior (Hecht, Berg, Lilienfeld, & Latzman, 2016;Reidy et al, 2015), violent criminal behavior (Dil & Kazmi, 2016;Wiklund, Ruchkin, Koposov, & Af Klinteberg, 2014), recidivism (Richards et al, 2016;Sturup, Karlberg, Fredriksson, Lihoff, & Kristiansson, 2016), and even violent recidivism (Richards et al, 2016;Sitney, Caldwell, & Caldwell, 2016)little is known about the role of psychopathic traits in IPV perpetration. Although traditional batterer typologies have suggested that psychopaths could belong to a specific batterer subtype-type 86 1 batterers, proposed by Gottman et al (1995), and Jacobson and Gottman (1998), or generally violent/antisocial (GVA) batterers, proposed by Holtzworth-Munroe and Stuart (1994)-further empirical studies testing these hypotheses are necessary.…”

The Development of Severe and Chronic Violence Among Youth: The Role of Psychopathic Traits and Reward Processing

“…Importantly, whereas a diagnosis of CD is unlikely at an early developmental age [37], CU traits can be observed and measured at a very early age prior to typical age of clinical diagnoses [38–45]. Moreover, these traits are generally stable across adolescence and into adulthood, as is the association between these traits and acts of severe violence [10]. Thus, psychopathic traits, especially those of callous affect, appear to designate a particularly violent type of juvenile who offends earlier, with greater severity, chronicity, and diversity in type of violence and victim [32, 46, 47].…”

“…From a violence prevention and reduction perspective, focusing on this minority of violent youth would appear to proffer a substantial reduction in rates of extreme acts of violence at collective levels [8–10]. This process requires that we identify those contributory factors with the greatest impact on the development and maintenance of these severe acts of violence among this minority of youth.…”

Psychopathy Traits and Violent Assault Among Men With and Without History of Arrest

“…In turn, this disruption in normal development predisposes these individuals to the persistent perpetration of severe violence (Blair, 2013; Blair, Mitchell, & Blair, 2005; Herba et al, 2007; Lykken, 1995; Skeem & Cooke, 2010a). Although psychopathy was not originally conceived of as a criminal construct per se, its association with crime and violence is well established (Lynam, 1996; Porter & Woodworth, 2006; Reidy, Kearns, & DeGue, 2013; Reidy et al, 2015; Reidy, Shelley-Tremblay, & Lilienfeld, 2011). Psychopathy is tied to heightened risk for some of the most severe acts of violence, such as unprovoked and instrumental aggression, physical and sexual assaults, homicides, and gratuitous and sadistic violence (Porter & Woodworth, 2006; Reidy et al, 2011; Robertson & Knight, 2014; Woodworth et al, 2013).…”