Introduction Recent evidence suggests that autonomic nervous system functioning can reflect individual differences in sensitivity to the environment, which in turn moderates the effects of family co...

Objective Psychopathy is associated with harmful behaviors in romantic relationships, but its causal effect on partner well-being remains elusive. Across two studies, we apply robust observational m...

Research has sought to understand the relationship among childhood maltreatment, maladaptive personality, and antisocial behaviors. However, most of the literature overlooks possible gender differences by using primarily male samples. The current study examined these relationships, focusing on the mediating role of personality dysfunction, in samples of women who are incarcerated (N = 200) and undergraduate students (N = 187). Correlations revealed moderate to strong associations among childhood trauma, personality psychopathology, and antisocial behavior (rs = .31-.66). The findings demonstrated a mediation pathway from childhood trauma to BPD (β = .37) and ASPD/psychopathy (βs = .25-.34) to antisocial behavior (βs = .35-.67). This study provides a comprehensive understanding of the associations among childhood trauma, personality psychopathology, and antisocial behavior. Additionally, it expands existing research by presenting a mediation model, demonstrating the role of personality dysfunction in mediating the relationship between childhood maltreatment and antisocial behavior in women.

Emerging evidence supports that primary and secondary callous-unemotional (CU) variants show distinct physiological correlates, though prior research …

Psychopathy is the confluence of antagonism toward others (meanness), fearless social dominance (boldness), and difficulty controlling impulses (disinhibition) and is at the root of many social woes. One factor associated with high levels of psychopathy in adulthood is a history of abuse and neglect in childhood. Although there are several studies on this topic, there is little research on the relative association of child abuse and neglect with psychopathy as measured using contemporary assessment instruments (i.e., incorporating indicators of meanness, boldness, and disinhibition). In this study, we address this issue by examining the influence of child abuse and neglect on a composite measurement of psychopathy in two samples (435 college students and 399 women and men recruited online) using a partial least squares approach to structural equation modeling. Results suggest that across both samples, childhood physical neglect is the strongest predictor of psychopathy in adulthood. However, the influence of other forms of abuse/neglect differs depending on both the sample and gender. These findings shed light on the developmental antecedents of psychopathy and have implications for future study and clinical intervention with people with high levels of psychopathy.

Low resting heart rate (RHR) is considered the best-replicated biological correlate for antisocial and conventional criminal behaviors, but there is l…

Attachment insecurity is associated with callous-unemotionality (CU), but few studies have considered whether specific dimensions of insecurity are differentially associated with CU. The first aim of ...

Three direct replication studies were conducted to investigate the association between psychopathy and self-construal. Participants were undergraduate college students who completed two comprehensive....

Functional magnetic resonance imaging studies of conduct disorder (CD) have mostly been limited to males. Here, we examined whether male and female youths with CD showed similar or distinct alteration...

Music is a powerful medium to study emotion recognition. However, findings are mixed regarding the proficiency of young children to detect emotion conveyed by music. Moreover, we lack knowledge about...

YouTube video by Suzanna D

The neural foundations of the Dark Triad (DT) personality traits—narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy—remain largely unexplored despite their profound impact on social behavior. Previous rese...

Psychopathy involves emotional deficits and affective processing difficulties, yet its relationship with emotional processing in incarcerated women remains underexplored. This study examines associ...

Nature Communications - When learning to make choices that simultaneously affect the self and others, asymmetric encoding of information guides future social behaviors across mutually beneficial,...

Previous work has produced conflicting findings on psychopathy and executive functioning (EF) and had yet to consider the role of sadism with the four-factor model of psychopathy. Further, the effects...