Read the Featured Manuscripts

SSSP Featured Article of the Month: April 2013

Chosen and summarized by: Essi Viding

Hicks, B. M., Carlson, M. D., Blonigen, D. M., Patrick, C. J., Iaconno, W. G., & McGue, M. (2012). Psychopathic personality traits and environmental contexts: Differential correlates, gender differences, and genetic mediation. Personality Disorders, 3, 209-227.

Corresponding Author: Brian Hicks, Department of Psychiatry, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48105, USA. brianhic@med.umich.edu

A few key findings were:

• Both affective-interpersonal and impulsive-antisocial features of psychopathy are heritable.

• Affective-interpersonal features showed no or extremely modest associations with environmental risk factors, whereas impulsive-antisocial features of psychopathy were robustly associated with multiple environmental risk factors, such as family problems, school problems, antisocial peers, and negative life events.

SSSP Featured Article of the Month: March 2013

Chosen and summarized by: Joseph Newman

Sadeh, N., Javdani, S., & Verona, E. (2013). Analysis of Monoaminergic Genes, Childhood Abuse, and Dimensions of Psychopathy, Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 122, 167-179.

I very much enjoyed reading this article, which (a) provides a clear and highly informative summary of the potential importance of variations in the serotonin transporter and MAO-A genes for psychopathy and (b) presents new evidence regarding the association of these genes, and their interaction with childhood trauma, for PCL-R factor 1 and factor 2 traits.

Background: serotonin transport gene (5-HTTLPR). According to the authors, preliminary evidence suggests that the impulsive lifestyle factor of psychopathy is associated with reduced serotonergic functioning whereas interpersonal aspects of psychopathy are positively associated with serotonergic functioning (Dolan & Anderson, 2003). Such findings may indicate that the impulsive lifestyle factor is associated with vulnerability to stress, whereas the interpersonal factor involves less (i.e., more adaptive) stress reactivity.