Psychopaths are noted for their prolific and versatile antisocial behavior. During the past 15 years, great strides have been made in developing reliable methods for assessing psychopathy, characterizing its associated personality and criminal manifestations, and identifying etiologically relevant, biopsychological correlates of the disorder. These advances have served to identify a meaningful criminal subtype whose chronic maladjustment appears to arise from cognitive/affective processing deficits that hamper self-regulation and adequate socialization. Unfortunately, virtually all published research on psychopathic offenders has been conducted with male subjects with the consequence that knowledge about psychopathy in female offenders is virtually nonexistent. The purpose of this research is to redress the lack of information by examining the extent to which accumulated evidence on psychopathy in male offenders will generalize to female offenders. Specifically, the investigators propose to replicate key findings in the area of assessment, socio-psychiatric manifestations, and biopsychological correlates by (a) evaluating the suitability of the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (1), a state-of-the-art measure of psychopathy, for assessing psychopathy in females; (b) examining whether female psychopaths, like their male counterparts, are characterized by more violent and nonviolent offending, an earlier onset and wider range of criminal activity, and greater substance abuse than nonpsychopaths; and (c) determining the extent to which female psychopaths manifest the same physiological, behavioral, cognitive, and affective anomalies that distinguish male psychopaths. The proposed research is an effort to reduce the gap between what is known about psychopathy in male and female offenders. Moreover, it will provide a firm foundation for improving assessment of psychopathy in females, for the theorizing about its unique correlates, and for conducting follow-up studies of criminal recidivism and treatment efficacy. Although this work focuses on prison inmates, the majority of psychopaths are not likely to be incarcerated. With the understanding gleaned from these relatively clear-cut cases, however, investigators will be better able to identify and characterize psychopathy in a nonoffender population. Ultimately, such research should enable early identification of the relevant self-regulatory problems and inform intervention strategies designed to counteract their devastating effects on the individual and society.
| Hochhausen, Nicole M; Lorenz, Amanda R; Newman, Joseph P (2002) Specifying the impulsivity of female inmates with borderline personality disorder. J Abnorm Psychol 111:495-501 |
