Overview of the 2007 Conference

The Development of the Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits for Youth and ItsCorrelation with Deficits in the Processing of Distress Cues

Paul J. Frick, Eva R. Kimonis, Monica A. Marsee, Keith R. Cruise, Luna C. Munoz, & Katherine J. Aucoin, The Inventory of Callous-Unemotional Traits (ICU) was developed to provide an efficient, reliable, and valid assessment ofcallous-unemotional (CU) traits that overcomes many of the psychometric limitations of existing measures of these traits. This paper describes the factor structure, reliability, and validity of the ICU in an ethnically-diverse sample juvenile offenders,both boys and girls, in the southern United States (n = 248; ages 12 to 20) and compares it to published findings of the ICU structure in a large sample of community of German adolescents (n = 1443; ages 13 to 18). In both samples, confirmatoryfactor analyses were consistent with the presence of three factors (i.e., Uncaring, Callousness, and Unemotional) that relate to a higher-order callous-unemotional dimension. Also, CU traits overall showed associations with aggression, delinquency,personality dimensions, and both psychophysiological and self-report indices of emotional reactivity in both samples. There were some important differences across the three facets of the ICU in their associations with these key external criteria. Given the importance of deficits in the processing of distress cues to causal theories of CU traits, several findings related specifically to the association between the ICU and performance on a dot-probe task assessing attentional orienting topictures depicting distressing content are highlighted in the detained sample. Also, the combination of scores on the ICU and performance on the dot-probe task enhanced the prediction of aggression, self-reported violent delinquency, and officialrecords of violent arrests in the detained sample.

Juvenile Psychopathy: Content Validity of a Downward Translation

Donald R. Lynam, Karen J. Derefinko, Avshalom Caspi,Rolf Loeber & Magda Stouthamer-Loeber This study empirically examines the content validity of a juvenile psychopathy measure, the Childhood Psychopathy Scale(CPS), which was based on a downward translation of an adult instrument—the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R). Two concerns have been raised regarding recent downward developmental translations of psychopathy. The first regardsthe adequacy of coverage provided by the adult instrument, the PCL-R; the second regards the wholesale importation of an adult conception of psychopathy into adolescence. Both issues are addressed in the present study. The CPS was comparedto two other indices of juvenile psychopathy: (1) an index derived from expert ratings of the prototypical juvenile Cleckley psychopath and (2) an empirical index based on correlations with adult psychopathy. The 100 items of the Common Language Q-sort provided a common metric for the comparison. Psychopathy and personality were assessed at age 13 using the mother-reported CPS and the CLQ. Psychopathy was assessed at age 24 using the interviewer-rated Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. Data from over 250 participants of the middle sample of the Pittsburgh Youth Study were used to examine these relations. Item content analyses demonstrated considerable overlap between the three indices, indicating that the downward translation utilizes criteria similar to those of experts and the empirically-derived measure. In addition, these indices demonstrated considerable convergence, also supporting the content validity of thedownward translation. These results suggest that the downward translation method is adequate for understanding the juvenile psychopathy construct.

Intellectual Abilities, Academic Achievement, And The Development Of Callous-Unemotional Features And Conduct Problems In Young Girls

Dustin Pardini, Allison Hipwell, & Rolf Loeber, & Roos KoolhofChildren exhibiting behaviors consistent with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) and conduct disorder (CD) often have learning problems and intellectual impairments. However, it is not clear if these associations are due to co-occurringproblems (e.g., attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and lower intellectual abilities) or if they are moderated by the presence of callous-unemotional (CU) features. Also, most existing studies have relied on cross-sectional data and/or predominately male samples. As a result, relatively little is know about the influence of academic achievement and intellectual abilities on the development of conduct problems and CU behaviors in girls. This presentation provides data onthese issues using a large longitudinal cohort of young girls who are part of the Pittsburgh Girls Study (N = 622). In preliminary cross-sectional regression analysis, higher levels of CD, ADHD, and CU behaviors were all uniquely related tolower intellectual abilities and lower academic achievement in girls at 10-years of age. In contrast, increased ODD behaviors were associated with higher intellectual abilities and academic achievement after controlling for co-occurring CU, ADHD, andCD behaviors. Regression analyses were then conducted using intellectual abilities and academic achievement to predict changes in ODD, CD, and CU traits at 1-year follow-up (i.e., age 11), after controlling for prior levels of these behaviors (i.e.,age 10). Results indicated that neither intellectual abilities nor academic achievement were related to changes in ODD or CD behaviors. Moreover, there was no indication that CU traits moderated the relation between cognitive abilities and changesin ODD or CD behaviors. However, higher levels of academic achievement were associated with decreases in CU behaviors at 1-year follow-up. This finding remained significant after controlling for race, SES, and earlier ADHD symptoms. The results suggest that the association between cognitive abilities and externalizing behavior problems in girls may be different than that found in boys. Specifically, higher school achievement seems to protect girls from showing increases in CU traits, whilegirls who are more intelligent and academically competent tend to be perceived by their caregivers as being more oppositional and defiant.

Gene-Environment Correlations and Interactions in the Prediction of Callous-Unemotional Behaviors at School Entry

Amélie Petitclerc, Michel Boivin, Ginette Dionne, Frank Vitaro, Mara Brendgen, Richard E. Tremblay, & Daniel Pérusse,Important progress has been made in research on the development of psychopathy by positing callous-unemotional (CU)behavior as its central behavioral precursor in childhood and adolescence. This study used a genetically informative design to examine predictors of CU behavior at school entry among child and parenting factors assessed during the preschoolperiod. Participants were 634 twins from the Quebec Newborn Twin Study, a longitudinal study of a birth cohort of Canadian twins. When the twins were 30, 48 and 60 months of age, mothers assessed their children’s externalizing behavior andreported on their own parenting practices. After the twins entered school, teachers rated their CU behavior in Kindergarten (age 6) and Grade 1 (age 7). Consistent with results obtained in a sample of 7-year-old British twins (Viding, Blair, Moffitt, & Plomin, 2005), CU behavior at school entry was found to be influenced by genetic factors and unique environmental factors, but not by environmental factors shared by both twins from the same family. While this result may suggest that parentingpractices have little influence on children’s development of CU behavior, it may also hide gene-environment correlations (e.g., a correlation between children’s genetic makeup and mothers’ use of coercion) or gene-environment interactions (e.g.,different effects of mothers’ coercion depending on children’s genetic makeup). Preliminary analyses suggest evidence for both these phenomena. First, we found that mothers’ use of coercion was linked to children’s genetic similarity (i.e., MZtwins were treated more similarly than DZ twins). Second, we found a significant interaction between children’s preschool oppositional behavior and mothers’ coercive parenting in predicting CU behavior at school entry. Specifically, mother’scoercive parenting predicted elevated CU traits for children low in preschool oppositional behavior, but was unrelated to CU traits for children high in preschool oppositional behavior. These results could imply two different pathways to CU behavior,one influenced by parenting, the other influenced by other (potentially genetic) factors. We will conduct further analyses to document these observed phenomena and their interplay in the prediction of CU behavior.

Neural Reactivity to Emotional Stimuli in Children with Conduct Problems andCallous-Unemotional Traits

Essi Viding, Alice Jones, Kristin Laurens & Gareth BarkerChildren with conduct problems and callous and unemotional traits (CP/CU+) may be at risk for developing psychopathy in adulthood. This problematic group of youngsters also shows a cognitive-affective profile indicative of abnormal amygdalafunctioning. Adult fMRI data is suggestive of amygdala hyporeactivity in psychopaths. This study examined the neural basis of emotion processing in boys with high levels of CP and CU (CP/CU+), as compared with typically developing control boys(TD). All boys were selected from an on-going longitudinal Twins Early Development Study (one twin per pair were included in the analyses). Emotional processing was assessed using face choice (gender assignment) and emotional picturematching tasks that has previously been employed in fMRI and shown amygdala activation. Region of interest (ROI) analysis revealed significant between group differences in the left amygdala activation for emotional content vs. base-line. Specifically, TD boys showed stronger amygdala activation to emotional content than CP/CU+ boys. This finding is in line with the cognitive-affective data for CP/CU+ children and supports Blair’s model of developmental amygdala deficit inindividuals with psychopathy. The current investigation benefits from being conducted within an on-going longitudinal study and opens up an avenue to explore trait like differences in brain emotional reactivity and how this may predispose individualsto the development of affective or personality disorders.

10:30 – 11:00 AMBreak

11:00 – 12:30 PMSymposium: Genetic and Environmental Influences on Psychopathy (Chair:Stephen Benning)

Genetic Contributions to “Environmental” Correlates of Psychopathy

Daniel Blonigen, Brian Hicks, Marie Carlson, Christopher Patrick, Robert Krueger, &William Iacono

In this study, we examine environmental correlates of the psychopathic traits of Fearless Dominance (FD; social dominance, stress immunity), and Impulsive Antisociality (IA; impulsivity, aggression). More importantly, we examine whether genesaccount for the relations among these environmental correlates and psychopathy. Past research has revealed genetic influences to putative environmental variables when such variables are treated as phenotypes in a genetic analysis (Plomin& Bergeman, 1991). We will investigate the degree of genetic overlap among several environmental variables and psychopathic traits to detect if gene-environment correlations are present in the development of psychopathy. Participants are 626 male and female twin pairs from the Minnesota Twin-Family Study assessed at age 17. Psychopathic traits of FD and IA were estimated from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Criterion validation studies providesupport for the use of the MPQ as a proxy measure for these constructs (Benning et al., 2005; Blonigen et al., 2005). Environmental Measures include: school environment (twin, mother, and teacher responses to the Academic History Questionnaire), peer relations (twin and teacher reports), and family environment (twin and parents responses to the Parental Environment Questionnaire). Bivariate correlations will examine associations among the psychopathic traits andcomposite variables of school, peer, and family environment. Cholesky decompositions will estimate the genetic correlation between the environmental composites and psychopathic traits. IA was associated with family turmoil, school problems, anddeviant peers. FD exhibited a modest positive association with family cohesion, academic achievement, and good peer relations. Future genetic analyses will examine whether these associations are due to shared genetic and environmentalinfluences; thus attesting to the possible role of passive or active gene-environment correlations in the development of psychopathic traits.

Psychopathic Personality Traits And Externalizing Problems In Childhood AndAdolescence: Genetic And Environmental Influences

Henrik Larsson, Essi Viding, Robert Plomin, Catherine Tuvblad, Henrik Andershed, & Paul Lichtenstein The general aim of this study is to investigate how genetic and environmental factors contribute to psychopathicpersonality traits and externalizing problems during the development from childhood to adolescence. We used data on psychopathic personality dimensions and externalizing problems from two large population-based twin studies: (i) the Twin study of Child and Adolescent Development (TCHAD) include self-report data of psychopathic personality traits and externalizing problems from >1000 16-year-old twin pairs and (ii) the Twins Early Development Study(TEDS) include teacher data on psychopathic personality dimensions and externalizing problems from >3000 9-year-old twin pairs. Multivariate genetic models were fitted to examine how genetic and environmental influencescontribute to the associations between psychopathic personality dimensions and externalizing problems. Results showed a considerable genetic overlap between psychopathic personality traits and antisocial behavior in adolescence, as well as between antisocial behavior, hyperactivity and callous-unemotional traits in childhood. These results suggest common genetic risk factors that influence both psychopathic personality dimensions anddifferent domains of externalizing problems. Nevertheless, the results also showed shared environmental influences only on antisocial behavior in adolescence, as well as unique genetic variance in callous-unemotional in childhood,which suggest etiologic specificity in the psychopathic personality dimensions and externalizing problems. Future research needs to consider the existence of general predisposing factors that influence a both psychopathic personality dimensions and a broad range of externalizing problems, but also specific predisposing factors that differentiate between different domains of externalizing problems.

Evidence for Continuity and Change in Psychopathic Personality Dimensions inMidlife: A Behavior Genetic Investigation.

Michael Brook, David S. Kosson, Elizabeth A. Sullivan, Matthew Panizzon, Michael J. Lyons, Carol E. Franz, Seth A. Eisen, & William S. KremenPsychopathic personality is characterized by interpersonal dominance, impulsivity, sensation seeking, poor planning, aggressiveness, and alienation. Investigations using self-report measures of psychopathic personality traits in noninstitutionalized samples have reported positive associations with indices of antisocial behavior. Recent studies haveshown that the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; Tellegen, 1982) scales can be used to estimate scores on the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996), the best validated self-report measure of psychopathic personality traits. There is now substantial evidence for the existence of two largely orthogonal PPI dimensions, the first (PPI-1) indexing the fearless/dominant, and the second (PPI-2) indexing the impulsive/antisocial traits.Recent studies have reported additive genetic and unique environmental influences for both PPI-1 and PPI-2 that were roughly equal in magnitude and showed relatively stable developmental trajectories from adolescence to young adulthood.However, no study has examined the extent of these influences in midlife. We examined genetic and environmental influences on the variance in MPQ-estimated PPI dimensions in a sample of 690 middle-aged male twins from the VietnamEra Twin Registry. Biometrical modeling results indicated that the variance in psychopathic personality traits in the present sample is best explained by additive genetic and nonshared environmental influences. Additionally, PPI-1 showed roughly equal contributions from genetic and environmental factors, whereas PPI-2 showed apparently greater contributions from the environment than the genes. These results are consistent with the notion that the stability in impulsive/antisocial traits isinfluenced by genetic factors, whereas the change is influenced by environmental factors. Current analyses will compare raw PPI scores from the present sample to those previously reported for younger samples.

Psychopathic Features Moderate the relationship between Harsh and InconsistentParental Discipline and Juvenile Conduct Problems

John F. Edens, Nancy Skopp, & Melissa CahillThe relationship between the quality of parenting and children’s externalizing behavior problems is well established in the literature. However, two prior studies involving grade school-aged children (Oxford et al., 2003; Wootton et al., 1997) havesuggested that psychopathic features may moderate the relationship between parenting and conduct problems, with ineffective parenting being less relevant to explaining the behavior problems of those children who are high in callous-unemotional traits, as assessed by the C/U scale of the Antisocial Process Screening Device (Frick & Hare, 2002). Although intriguing, no research to date has attempted to discern whether a similar moderation effect would be observed among olderchildren with more severe behavior problems. The present study tested the potential moderating role of psychopathic features among adolescent offender (n = 76) who had been administered the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL:YV). Despite examining a much older sample and using different measures and methods to operationalize key constructs, our results suggested an interaction very similar to that noted in earlier studies: harsh and inconsistent disciplinewas relevant in the prediction of conduct problems among adolescents, but only among those low on the affective deficit dimension of the PCL:YV. Interestingly, interpersonal features of psychopathy (e.g., grandiosity, manipulativeness) alsomoderated the association between inconsistent discipline and conduct problems, but analyses of the simple slopes indicated that the form of these two interactions was reversed. Harsh and inconsistent parenting predicted greater conductproblems, but only among those who were higher in the interpersonal features of psychopathy. Globally, our results reinforce the potential relevance of affective deficits to understanding the relationship between parenting and conduct problems and also support the distinction between affective and interpersonal features as separable dimensions of psychopathy with unique correlates.

Psychopathy, Cluster B Personality Traits, and Abuse History as Predictors ofViolence among Female Offenders

Kacy Gingrich, John F. Edens, Eva R. Kimonis, Jennifer L. Skeem, & Kevin S. DouglasPsychopathy is a significant predictor of future violence in men (e.g., Salekin, Rogers, & Sewell, 1996); however, research with women is less clear. To date there is minimal evidence for the importance of psychopathy in predicting future criminaland violent behavior in women (e.g., Odgers et al., 2005; Edens, Campbell, & Weir, in press). There is more compelling evidence for the relation between abuse and violent behavior (e.g., Fergusson & Lynskey, 1997). Specifically, abuse maylead to the development of emotional deficits that interfere with moral socialization and the inhibition of aggressive behavior. The resulting callous and unemotional response style may result in psychopathy, which may in turn lead to violent behavior. This is especially important given the high rates of abuse and victimization in female offenders. The experience of abuse also has been associated with Cluster B Personality Disorders (e.g., Antisocial Personality Disorder, Borderline PersonalityDisorder) among women, and there is additional evidence for substantial overlap between psychopathy and personality disorders across gender. The primary aim of the current study is to examine the PCL-R’s ability to predict future criminal andviolent recidivism and institutional adjustment in an adult sample of incarcerated women (n > 300) who have been participating in an ongoing NIHM-funded research project. Given the strong associations between APD, BPD, abuse andviolence noted in earlier research, the second aim of the current study is to determine whether the relationship between psychopathy and recidivism is mediated by abuse history or Cluster B personality symptomatology. Consistent with pastfindings, it is expected that the relationship between psychopathy and future violence/misconduct will no longer be significant after controlling for abuse history or Cluster B personality symptoms.

Psychopathy is a personality disorder with interpersonal-emotional and antisocial-impulsive facets. These two facets appear

to be differentially related to the affective modification of the startle reflex, a psychophysiological index of emotional processing. Primarily the interpersonal-emotional facet is associated with a deficient fear-potentiated startle. This studyinvestigates the differential relations of the two psychopathy facets, assessed with the Psychopathic Personality Inventory, in 94 undergraduates, and in 51 inmates with a picture-viewing task eliciting four distinct emotional categories (erotic, thrill,threat, and victim) while the acoustic startle reflex is measured. Contrary to previous studies, we could not replicate the association between the interpersonal-emotional factor of psychopathy and a deficient fear-potentiated startle in either the undergraduate or the inmate sample. However, in both samples, the two psychopathy facets were related to distinct self-report responses to the emotionally-laden pictures. The implications of the current study and directions for future researchare discussed.

Moral Emotions In Predatory Versus Impulsive Psychopathy

Maaike J. Cima Little experimental work has been done on the relationship between moral emotions and different variations (e.g., predatory versus impulsive dimensions) of psychopathic offenders. Using implicit measures this study will investigate whether poorlydeveloped moral beliefs are related to variations within psychopathy. A total of 69 male delinquents participated in this study. All participants completed 3 questionnaires (PPI; RPQ; BIS-11). To measure moral cognitions of good and bad, 2 computertasks were administered (the IAT and a moral Dot Probe task). Delinquents were divided into a psychopathic group (n = 34) and a non-psychopathic group (n = 35), based on the median of the PPI total score. The results of the relation between thePPI and RPQ scores reveal that the majority of the psychopaths expressed both instrumental and impulsive violence, but higher impulsivity scores (see Table 1). It can be concluded that there exists no strict distinction between the impulsivedimension and the instrumental dimension within the group of psychopaths. The results of the IAT support this conclusion. There was a significant IAT-effect when the results of the psychopaths and the non-psychopaths are compared (see Figure1). However, there was no difference concerning the implicit moral cognitions between the impulsive and instrumental psychopathic offenders (see Figure 2). On the dot-probe task the results show both the impulsive and instrumentalpsychopathic offenders attend more to guilt-words than to neutral words. In sum, there is not a strict dichotomy between the impulsive and the instrumental types of aggression within the group of psychopaths. Regarding moral emotions of good and bad, psychopaths show a lower IAT effect, meaning that they fail to demonstrate an association between positive and moral good, as well as negative and moral bad. This failure of moral emotions is true for both instrumental as well as impulsivepsychopathic offenders.

Decoding of Facial Expression of Emotion in Criminal Psychopaths: Recent Data

Thierry H. Pham, Claire Ducro, & Laurie MartensWhereas previous research has consistently shown psychopaths to present deficits in processing verbal emotional material, evidence regarding non-verbal emotional material has been mixed (Kosson et al., 2002; Williamson et al., 1991). To examinewhether psychopaths exhibit specific deficits in non-verbal emotional processing, 20 criminal psychopaths identified with Hare’s Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (mean total score = 27), and 29 non-criminals completed the facial affect recognitiontest developed by Philippot et al. (1999). All participants were adult males. The psychopath and the control groups were equivalent for age and IQ (as measured by the WAIS). The criminal psychopaths were confined in a high-security Belgian prison. Forty slides were presented on a computer screen, each representing a male or a female actor portraying facial expressions of happiness, anger, sadness, fear or disgust. Facial stimuli varied in emotional intensity (0%, 30%, 70% and100%). The results revealed that psychopaths did not differ from controls in term of accuracy in decoding facial expression of emotion and no interaction including group effect was significant. As concern the intensity, we found a significant group xintensity x labels effect. Subsequent analyses revealed that psychopaths attributed a lower level of emotional intensity for intense expressions (70% and 100 %) while they attributed a higher level of intensity for weaker expressions (neutral and 30%). Finally we found a significant group x intensity x difficulty effect, psychopaths found it easier to rate neutral and 100 % expressions of anger and joy emotions.. Overall, these results are consistent with the notion that emotional processingdeficits in psychopathy are more pronounced for verbal than for non-verbal material.

Contextual and Emotional Risk Factors for Primary and Secondary Variants of Psychopathy in Juvenile Offenders

Eva R. Kimonis & Elizabeth Cauffman Karpman (1941; 1948) distinguished between two subtypes of psychopathy by the presence of anxiety. The primarysubtypes are characterized by a lack of anxiety, whereas secondary subtypes show heightened levels of anxiety and are presumed to have an environment etiology, resulting in an acquired affective disturbance. Further, prior research found high-anxious psychopaths could be distinguished from low-anxious psychopaths by the failure to show the same passive avoidance and response modulation deficits on laboratory paradigms. Other studies have found secondary subtypesmanifest greater emotional disturbance (e.g., hostility, depression), poorer interpersonal functioning, and more aggression. This is the first study to examine differences between juvenile subtypes of psychopathy on violence and cognitive-affectiveprocessing. The current sample included 231 primarily minority (30% African American; 47% Hispanic) male juvenile offenders. For this study we selected youth scoring in the upper 25^th percentile on the Youth Psychopathy Inventory (YPI) to perform a cluster analysis using their total YPI scores and total scores on the Reynolds Manifest Anxiety Scale. A computerized emotional pictures dot-probe task was used to assess emotional processing. We identified two clusters; primary psychopaths were low on anxiety, whereas secondary subtypes were high on anxiety. These two groups showed comparable scores on the YPI. In addition, the secondary subtype had directly experienced more violence in their lifetime.Importantly, these groups showed differences in their performance on the dot-probe task. Primary psychopaths showed an emotional deficit in response to distress pictures (Mean = -16.6 milliseconds), whereas secondary subtypes showed greaterattention to distress pictures (Mean = 11.1 ms). Moreover, the secondary subtype showed significantly greater levels of violence and verbal aggression toward others. These results have theoretical and practical implications for understandinghow emotional experience plays a role in the behavioral characteristics of those with psychopathy.

Remembering David Lykken: Personal Interactions and Scholarly Influence

Robert D. Hare My first exposure to David Lykken was through his 1955 Ph.D. dissertation and its publication in 1957. This study, along with the clinical writings of Cleckley, Arieti, Karpman, and the McCords, had an important influence on the nature and direction of the research career upon which I was about to embark. Over the ensuing years Lykken’s enormous contributions to thedeveloping field of psychophysiology, coupled with his common sense approach to a variety of clinical and research issues, including psychopathy and antisocial behavior, continued to impress and influence me. I will describe my interactions withhim over the years, among them a landmark court case in Vancouver on the admissibility of polygraph evidence in which I was caught between two formidable opponents, David Lykken and David Raskin.

Low Fear, Disinhibition, Electrodermal Hyporeactivity, and Developmental Models of Psychopathy

Don C. Fowles I will discuss David Lykken’s influence on my interests and theorizing, as well as his impact on current views of psychopathy. Surprising results in my dissertation study of electrodermal responses in schizophrenia led me to pursue mechanisms ofelectrodermal activity during a postdoc with Peter Venables. There I discovered Lykken’s extensive research on electrodermal mechanisms and methodology, which ultimately resulted in the famous paper with Venables that standardizedmethodology for recording skin conductance. However, Lykken’s dissertation study proposing that poor anxiety conditioning —indexed by skin conductance responses—produces the disinhibited behavior seen in psychopaths had a much greater impact on my career. Keenly aware of his theory because of my interest in psychopathology and electrodermal activity, I found Gray’s concept of an anxiety system/behavioral inhibition system (BIS) to provide an excellent theoretical account ofthe link between poor anxiety and disinhibition proposed in Lykken’s theory. Thus, Lykken’s research was responsible for my career-long interest in both psychopathy and Gray’s BIS. In his 1995 book Lykken made it clear that a low fear temperamentis only a risk factor for psychopathy that interacts with parenting such that parents must be especially skilled to produce good developmental outcomes. Recent developments strongly support this model but also identify a second risk factor ordeficit that can result in psychopathy. The relation of Lykken’s electrodermal hyporeactivity to these two dimensions or deficits varies with the nature of the stimuli eliciting electrodermal responses. Thus, Lykken’s work identified one majorpathway to psychopathy and provided the context for identifying a second pathway.

David Lykken’s Enduring Contributions to Understanding Psychopathy and Antisocial Behavior

Scott O. Lilienfeld In this talk, I will review David Lykken’s cardinal contributions to the understanding of psychopathy and antisocial behavior,beginning with his classic 1955 doctoral dissertation on psychopaths’ low fear threshold and concluding with his controversial writings on the psychosocial causes of crime. I will focus on four central themes that permeated much ofLykken’s writings on these topics: (a) the fearlessness hypothesis and Lykken’s preference for theoretical parsimony in accounting for the etiology of psychopathy, (b) the tantalizing but conjectural ties between psychopathy and heroic altruism,

(c) Lykken’s “armchair” efforts to disaggregate antisocial behavior into more etiologically homogeneous subtypes, and (d) Lykken’s distinction between psychopathy and sociopathy and his interests in the potential etiological role of suboptimalparenting in the latter. Although David Lykken published only a handful of works on psychopathy per se, his impact on the field’s thinking has been lasting and profound.

Developmental Origins of Psychopathy: The Contributions of David Lykken

Paul J. Frick I was neither fortunate enough to be his student nor to meet David Lykken personally. However, I can serve as but oneexample of a generation of researchers, a much younger generation than the other presenters on the symposium, whose work owes much of its conceptual basis to the work of Lykken. To illustrate this influence, the overarching premise that has guided my research is the need to consider multiple pathways, each with different causal factors, which can lead to serious antisocial and aggressive behaviors. I have found it critical to embed the construct of psychopathy within this largerframework by using it to designate one such unique causal pathway. This framework highlights the great importance of focusing on what makes psychopathic individuals distinct from other antisocial individuals, especially when attempting toextend the construct from the focus of much of the existing research: incarcerated Caucasian adult men. This conceptualization is related to and was directly influenced by Lykken’s view of a “family of antisocial personalities” in whichpsychopathic personality was but one member. A second example of Lykken’s influence on my work is that a critical premise to my research is the importance of a distinct temperament characterized by emotional deficits to certain types of stimuli thatmay be the primary difference between individuals on the psychopathic pathway compared to other antisocial individuals. Further, I view this unique temperament as critical for understanding the developmental disruptions that can lead topsychopathic traits. So too Lykken focused on low fear as being a deficit unique to psychopathic individuals within the family of antisocial personality disorders and a key deficit for understanding many of the other characteristics that these individuals exhibit.

Lykken as an Inspiration for Contemporary Research on Affect in Psychopathy

Christopher J. PatrickThe past decade or so has seen a resurgence of interest in the study of emotional processes in psychopathy. I will discuss the influence David Lykken’s work has had on my research and that of other investigators in this area. My dissertation study,an investigation of the accuracy of polygraph (“lie detector”) testing with psychopathic offenders, was directly inspired by Lykken’s own dissertation as well as by his writings on the topic of deception and its detection. The somewhat unexpectedfindings of this study led me to become interested in further studying affective processes in psychopathy and exploring distinctions among individuals diagnosed as psychopathic. The development in the late 1980’s of the startle modulationparadigm, a method for distinguishing negative emotional activation from pleasurable arousal, suggested a new approach to testing Lykken’s hypothesis that psychopathy entails a core deficiency in fear reactivity. My work in this area, and that ofother investigators employing complementary methodologies, indicates that low fear plays a key role in psychopathy but that it may not account for all features or manifestations of the disorder. I will discuss implications of this recent research on affectand psychopathy for an understanding of psychopathy subtypes and the phenomenon of “successful psychopathy”—topics in which Lykken was keenly interested.

7:00 – 8:00 PM Executive Board Meeting, Toucan Room, Hotel, 2^nd Floor

Saturday, April 28, 2007, Ibis Room and Sandpiper Rooms (Convention Center)

Psychophysiological Correlates of Self-Reported Psychopathy in a Student Sample

Patrick Sylvers, S. Amanda Alden, Patricia A. Brennan, & Scott O. LilienfeldSelf-report questionnaires of psychopathy provide a cost-effective and efficient means of assessing a complex andmultifaceted syndrome. Nevertheless, these measures remain controversial, in part because their external correlates remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the psychophysiological correlates of self-reported psychopathy in a studentsample. Participants were 120 undergraduates, 68 female and 52 male. Self-report psychopathy measures included the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) and the Levenson Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRPS). Task measuresincluded indices of impulsivity, passive avoidance, and reactions to emotionally evocative slides, during which we measured electrodermal responding (EDR), pre-ejection period (PEP), and respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA). Psychopathy totalscores correlated negatively with PEP and EDR during the passive avoidance task, and RSA correlated negatively with viewing positively-valenced slides. Secondary analyses examined the role of primary and secondary psychopathy in these response deficits. These analyses suggested that PEP hyperreactivity was characteristic of primary psychopathy, whereas EDR hyporeactivity was characteristic of secondary psychopathy. We will discuss the implications of these findings for thefunctioning of the behavioral inhibition system (BIS), measured by EDR; behavioral activation system (BAS), measured by PEP; and emotion regulation, measured by RSA. Our findings suggest that psychopathy is characterized by an underactiveBIS and overactive BAS in student samples, consistent with most prison research. Moreover, our findings suggest that emotion dysregulation is not a prominent feature of psychopathy in student samples. We conclude by discussing unresolvedquestions and directions for future research.

The Psychophysiology of Fearless Dominance: Effects of Stimulus Modality and Gender

Stephen D. Benning & Christopher J. Patrick A recent model of psychopathy based around constructs in the Psychopathic Personality Inventory suggests that psychopathy represents the confluence of two orthogonal constellations of personality traits. One of these constellations,termed fearless dominance, has been implicated in the deficits in emotional reactivity long thought to be a hallmark of psychopathy. Previous work indicates that young men in the community show deficient fear-potentiated startle blink reflexesduring a picture-viewing paradigm. However, it is unclear whether this deficit is specific to men or picture viewing. It is also unclear whether individuals high in fearless dominance show selective deficits in defensive emotional processing or have more generalized deficits in both appetitive and defensive emotional processing. A total of 18 undergraduate participants high in fearless dominance (9 women) and 16 undergraduate participants low in fearless dominance (10 women) wereassessed in an emotional stimulus paradigm involving pictures and sounds. Startle blink and postauricular reflexes were collected as measures of defensive and appetitive emotional processing, respectively. Men high in fearless dominance failedto modulate their startle blink reflexes during pictures, though women high and low in fearless dominance showed equal, robust potentiation of the startle blink reflex during aversive pictures. Like those low in fearless dominance, both men andwomen high in fearless dominance showed robust potentiation of the startle blink reflex during aversive sounds. Both fearless dominance groups exhibited potentiation of the postauricular reflex during pleasant pictures and sounds comparedto neutral stimuli. Thus, the deficit in fear-potentiated startle observed in those high in fearless dominance may be restricted to men in picture-viewing tasks; furthermore, deficits in appetitive processing do not appear to be involved in fearlessdominance.

Psychopathic Traits, Anxiety, and Affective Processing Under Attentional Load

Jeremy D. Dvorak-Bertsch, John J. Curtin, & Joseph P. NewmanPrior research has consistently demonstrated deficient aversive conditioning and deficient fear-potentiated startle (FPS) in psychopathic individuals; the putative mechanism offered for these deficits has been deficient amygdala function. However, contemporary research has demonstrated that subcortical regions such as the amygdala do not operate in isolation, but instead interact with higher-order brain regions and require attentional resources (Pessoa, 2002). Furthermore, research hassuggested that individual differences may moderate cognitive-affective interactions at the level of attentional engagement, rather that at the level of emotional reactivity (Dvorak-Bertsch et al., in press). With regard to psychopathy, Newman andLorenz (2003) have hypothesized that the affective deficits associated with psychopathy may reflect the attentional demands of the situation. This study sought to examine whether threat processing (indexed by FPS) of undergraduate studentsvarying on two primary dimensions of psychopathy [estimated from the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire; see Benning et al., 2003] would differ as a function of attentional set and cognitive load. Moreover, given evidence from aprevious study highlighting the role of anxiety in moderating cognitive-affective interactions, this study sought to parse apart the role of psychopathy and anxiety in threat processing under attentional constraints. An instructed fear paradigm wasconducted with 65 undergraduates. The color of a letter-stimulus predicted the administration of electric shock across 3 different conditions: threat-focused vs. alternative set vs. high-load. Analyses revealed that FPS was negatively correlated with the affective-interpersonal dimension of psychopathy when attention was directed away from threat processing without taxing cognitive resources, while no significant correlations were found in the threat-focused and high-load conditions. These data suggest that similar to trait anxiety, psychopathy is associated with impairments in threat processing only whenattention is constrained.

Psychopathic Personality Traits and Laboratory-Assessed Aggression

Edelyn VeronaAlthough psychopathy is considered a particularly robust predictor of violent recidivism (Salekin et al., 1996), recent studiesusing normal personality dimensions to model psychopathy have found significant correlations between aggression/violence and the antisocial deviance facet, but not the affective-interpersonal features, of psychopathy. In this study, PsychopathicPersonality Inventory (PPI) scores on the interpersonal-affective (PPI-1) and the social deviance (PPI-2) dimensions of psychopathy were estimated based on the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ; see Benning et al., 2003).Participants engaged in a laboratory aggression task under different aversive conditions (tactile stressor vs. interpersonal frustration), and their acoustic startle responses were measured throughout the procedure. Findings were that aggressivebehavior observed in the laboratory was positively correlated with both PPI-1 and PPI-2, although the correlation was only significant for PPI-2. Nonetheless, exposure to interpersonal frustration (goal-blocking by the confederate) heightened therelationship between the two PPI factors and aggressive behavior. Interestingly, those who scored high on both PPI-1 and PPI-2 (Combined Group) seemed to show the highest level of aggression in the high frustration condition. Finally, although the groups did not differ on startle reactivity during the procedure, decreased startle was correlated with increased aggression in the Combined group whereas this relationship was positive for those scoring high only on PPI-2 (but not PPI-1). These data demonstrate that PPI-1 traits may indeed serve to enhance aggressive outcomes under certain conditions, and that aggressive outcomes may be mediated by different emotional mechanisms (decreased vs. heightened emotionalarousal) for PPI-1 vs. PPI-2, respectively.

Why Should I Care What Happens to You? fMRI Evidence for Reduced Empathic ConcernAssociated with Subclinical Psychopathy

Matthew S. Shane, Carla L. Harenski, & Kent A. KiehlAlthough reduced empathy is considered core to the psychopathic disorder, only limited evidence for these empathic deficitshave been demonstrated empirically. The present fMRI study investigated the presence of psychopathy-related empathicdeficits by making use of recent work demonstrating empathy-related cingulate cortex activity during the viewing of anotherperson in pain (Singer et al., 2004), or of another person committing errors (Shane & Kiehl, under review). Twentyparticipants completed self-report measures of psychopathy (the Self-report Psychopathy Scale–2, SRP2; Hare, 1991) andempathy (Empathic Concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index; Davis, 1982), and either performed a speededgo/no-go task designed to elicit errors, or watched a 7-minute video of another individual performing the same go/no-go task.When viewing the video, participants were asked to press one of two buttons every time a no-go stimulus appeared, to

indicate if the actor successfully inhibited their button press response, or made a button-press error. Here we reportsignificant activity localized to subgenual and rostral cingulate, as well as orbitofrontal and medial frontal cortex, that was specific to viewing the actor’s button-press errors. Correlational analyses showed that SRP2 Factor 1 scores were inverselyrelated to peak activity in each of these regions (rs = -.39 to -.51), SRP2 Factor 2 scores trended towards a similar inverse relationship (rs = -.24 to -.36), and SRP2 total scores showed a specific inverse relationship with subgenual cingulate activity (r = -.45). Subgenual activity was further associated with empathic concern (r = .43), suggesting that the reduced cingulate response characteristic of high SRP2 scorers may represent diminished empathic processing. This notion was supportedthrough multiple regression, wherein empathic concern and peak subgenual activity shared significant variance towards the prediction of SRP2 factor 1 and total scores.

Psychopathy and Terror Management: Impact on Perceptions of Blue-Collar and White-Collar Criminality

Zach Walsh & David Kosson According to terror management theory, self-esteem buffers the aversive anxiety states provoked by mortality-related thoughts. Hypotheses derived from this theory have been corroborated by over 250 studies (see Pyszczynski et al., 2004 fora review). Several studies have demonstrated that, when reminded of their inevitable death, people buffer self-esteem (i.e., manage their terror) by clinging more strongly to conventional worldviews and reacting more unfavorably to worldviewchallengers. Socio-legal norms are an important class of conventions central to the worldview of many, and identification with these norms has been proposed to serve a self regulatory function. Indeed, several studies have found that increasinganxiety by heightening mortality salience influences attitudes towards criminality and legal sanctions. Specifically, individuals assigned to a mortality salience induction (MSI) condition have been found to judge transgressive (i.e., criminal) acts as warranting more severe punishment than individuals in control conditions (Florian & Mikulincer, 1997; Lieberman et al., 2001). The present study examined the impact of terror management strategies on attitudes toward blue-collar and white-collar criminal behavior among correctional inmates (n = 62), and the extent to which this impact was moderated by type of crime and level of psychopathy. As expected, following an MSI, blue-collar criminals judged white-collar crimes as meriting greater punishment. This effect was observed across low and high levels of psychopathy. This finding suggests that psychopathic offenders manage mortality-related anxiety in much the same way as other offenders. Analyses also revealeda Psychopathy X MSI X Type of Crime interaction indicating that psychopaths (n = 23) also judged blue-collar crimes as meriting more severe punishment following an MSI. In contrast, nonopsychopaths’ (n = 20) judgments about blue-collarcrimes were not affected by the MSI. These results might be interpreted to suggest that psychopathic individuals did not identify with blue-collar criminals. Results are discussed in relation to anxiety and self-regulation in psychopathy.

The Influence of an Anger Interview on Explicit and Implicit Assessment in Antisocials and Psychopaths

Jill Lobbestael, Maaike Cima and Arnoud Arntz In this study, patients with antisocial personality disorder were assigned to high, middle of low psychopathy subgroups, based on their PCl-r score. In addition, these patients were compared to patients with borderline and cluster C personalitydisorder (all assessed with SCID II), next to a non-patient control group. They were administered a stress induction interview, aimed at eliciting anger related emotions. At pre-and post stages of this interview, self reported levels of basic emotionswere assessed (POMS). Since antisocial populations frequently demonstrate under reportage of negative emotions, indirect assessment methods may more reliable indicate changes in experienced emotions. Therefore, the current study incorporated two additional implicit methods. First, changes in physiological indices of heart rate, skin conductance response, blood presses and facial EMG (corrugator supercilii) were measured, since increases of these parameters areassociated with heightened level of anger. Secondly, two variants of the Implicit Association Task (IAT) were developed; one to measure the association between the self and anger, and one for the association between the aggressor (identified by the participant) and swearwords. During the presentation, results will be discussed.

Preliminary Evidence for Negative Affectivity and Maladaptive Emotion RegulationStrategies in Youth with Psychopathic Traits

David S. Kosson, Lindsay Allen, Cami K. McBride, Zachary Walsh, Rachel Tercek, & Josh GrecoTraditional conceptualizations of psychopathy highlight reduced capacity for emotional experience in general and for specific emotions (e.g., anxiety; Cleckley, 1941; Lykken, 1957). Consistent with this perspective, studies with adults suggest psychopathy correlates inversely with depression and is usually uncorrelated with trait anxiety (Hare, 2003). However, the few studies addressing links between negative affectivity (NA) and psychopathic traits in juvenile samples suggest thatrelationships may be different among adolescents. Several studies have reported that PCL:YV scores are uncorrelated with mood disorder diagnoses (Bauer, 1991; Epstein et al., 2002) and self-reports of depression (O’Neill, Lidz, & Heilbrun, 2003).With regard to NA, some studies report negative (Murrie & Cornell, 2000) or nonsignificant correlations (Jack, 2000; O’Neill et al., 2003); others report positive correlations (Bauer, 1999; Kosson et al., 2002). The current study was conducted toinvestigate: 1) whether psychopathic traits were associated with NA in youth; and 2) whether psychopathic traits might be associated with maladaptive emotion regulation. We examined correlations between PCL:YV scores and several measuresof emotional function. We also used a dot probe task to examine attention to negative words following a negative mood induction. Prior studies show that attentional bias to such words under these conditions predicts subsequent development ofdepression; attention away from such words reflects mood repair processes. Preliminary analyses based on 48 detained adolescents reveal that PCL:YV scores are correlated with maladaptive anger expression and tend to be associated with self-reported NA. A manipulation check revealed that, as expected, ruminative response style predicted attention to negative words. Moreover, a PCL:YV X NA interaction showed that low-PCL:YV adolescents with NA exhibited attentional bias toward negative words, but high-PCL:YV adolescents with NA exhibited slight bias toward neutral words. In sum, results corroborate that emotionality in juvenile offenders with psychopathic traits is different from emotionality in adult offenders; and providepreliminary evidence for mood repair processes that may contribute to the pattern of relationships seen in adults.

4:30 – 5:00 PM Break

5:00 – 6:30 PM Paper Session: The Structure of Psychopathy (Chair: Randy Salekin)

Using Psychopathy-related Constructs to Parse the Heterogeneity of Antisocial Personality Disorder

Norman G. Poythress, Jennifer L. Skeem, Tao Wang, John F. Edens, Kevin S. Douglas, & Scott O. Lilienfeld Individuals who repeatedly violate social norms and laws comprise a broad group of significant concern to society. Such individuals, many of whom quality for a diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), have always been an obviousfocus of concern for the legal system and psychiatric and psychological communities. Since the publication of DSM-III, the APA’s approach to diagnosing socially deviant individuals has focused almost exclusively on a history of antisocial and/orirresponsible behaviors. This approach has been criticized for heterogeneity (e.g., Cunningham & Reidy, 1998), inadequate theoretical grounding, and questionable clinical utility (Lykken, 1995). There is growing consensus that the ASPD diagnosiscaptures a heterogeneous sample of people who have little in common apart from social deviance. In this study we used measures of psychopathy and related constructs to investigate the heterogeneity of ASPD using cluster analysis. A richclinical and empirical literature surrounding the construct of psychopathy suggests markers for discriminating among socially deviant individuals in terms of etiology and psychological functioning. Along with elevated psychopathic features, these markers include indices of fearlessness and behavioral inhibition/behavioral activation (Fowles & Dindo, 2006; Lykken, 1995), early history of abuse/trauma (Porter, 1996), and differential anxiety (Newman et al., 2005). Model-based clusteranalysis was used to identify relatively homogeneous subgroups from among 739 justice-involved adult males who met DSM-IV criteria for ASPD. Emergent groups were compared with each other, and with offenders who did not meet ASPDcriteria, on a variety of criterion variables including trait measures (e.g., aggression), laboratory task performance (e.g., passive-avoidance errors), and social outcomes (e.g., recidivism). Discussion will focus on the utility of this approach toidentifying and understanding socially deviant individuals.

Superordinate versus Subordinate Models Of Psychopathy: The Whole OrThe Sum Of The Parts?

Craig S. Neumann, Joseph P. Newman, Robert D. HareNeumann, Hare, and Newman (in press) recently examined the superordinate nature of the psychopathy construct, andshowed that a second-order (super) factor explained the majority of the variance in the lower-order psychopathy dimensions for large samples of male and female offenders, as well as forensic psychiatric patients. Neumann, Kosson, Forth, and Hare(2006) found similar results for a large cross-national sample of incarcerated adolescents. Taken together, these findings provide solid support for recent IRT research on psychopathy (Bolt, Hare, Vitale, & Newman, 2004), which require evidenceof construct unidimensionality, and also for the use of total scores from the PCL instruments to study individuals with psychopathic traits. However, other research on psychopathy has tended to rely upon the subordinate (or first-order)psychopathy dimensions in an attempt to pull apart differential links with various external correlates. This research suggests that the construct of psychopathy may be best understood in terms of its various ‘parts’ or lower-order dimensions. The current study will present data from two different large samples—i.e., offenders and civil psychiatric patients—to compare superordinate and subordinate models of psychopathy, with illustrations of their links with violence and intelligence.

Item-Level Factor Analyses of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory: Relations Betweenthe Resulting Factor Scales, Personality Measures, and Externalizing Behaviors

Lilian Dindo & Lee Anna Clark The Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI) is composed of eight scales designed to assess the central personality and behavioral features of psychopathy. Factor analyses of the PPI scales (excluding Coldheartedness [CH]) suggest the presence of two higher order factors, termed Fearless Dominance and Impulsive Antisociality (Benning et al., 2003). These two factors roughly correspond to the two PCL-R factors and evidence diverging relations with temperamental traits. In 957 undergraduates, we examined the item-level factor structure of the PPI, both with and without CH items and extracted two to eight (seven without CH items) factors. Two factors, resembling Benning et al.’s Fearless Dominance and ImpulsiveAntisociality constructs, emerged whether or not CH items were included. However, they only account for 38% (43% without CH) of the variance, whereas a five-factor solution (four when CH items are excluded) is a clean solution based on the screeplots and factor interpretability, and accounts for almost 20% more variance (15% without CH items). Based on these item-level factor analyses, scaled scores of the PPI were created for the 2-and 5-factor solutions and correlated with measures of abnormal (e.g., Schedule of Nonadaptive and Adaptive Personality) and normal personality (e.g., NEO-PI-R), as well as with fifty externalizing behaviors grouped into three scales (Sex and Drug Use, GeneralAntisocial Behavior, Irresponsible Behavior). Consistent with Benning et al., the two-factor solution evidenced diverging relations with Negative and Positive Temperament and externalizing behaviors. The five-factor solution consisted of Impulsive Antisociality (minus Carefree NonPlanfulness, which formed its own factor), separate Fearless and Dominance factors, and Coldheartedness. Extraction of these factors clarifies relations between dimensions of psychopathic personalityand both other personality measures and externalizing behaviors.

Assessing Psychopathy in Girls: Contributions of Item Response Theory

Gina Vincent, Candice Odgers, Randy Salekin, & Marlene MorettiThe PCL-R (Hare, 2003) originally was designed for use with adult male offenders, meaning several of the PCL-R’s test items define psychopathic characteristics according to male-based indicators. As such, some researchers have questionedthe validity of its items for identifying psychopathy in women. Recently, item response theory model analyses among adult offenders identified gender bias in most of the PCL-R’s behavioral items (Bolt, Hare, Vitale, & Newman, 2004). Put simply,these findings imply that the behavioral items of the PCL-R do not have the same relation or meaning to the underlying trait in women as they do in men. A seeming increase in the use of psychopathy assessments with female adolescents begs the question as to whether these differences extend downward. This study used item response theory methods and a large sample of male and female young offenders to examine whether the items of the Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version(Forth, Kosson, & Hare, 2003) had the same relation to a latent-trait (assumed to be psychopathy) in girl offenders as boy offenders. Using a combined sample (N = 1031) and the 3-factor structure of the PCL:YV, item response theory methodswere used to compare the item functioning of the PCL:YV between male (n = 615) and female (n = 392) young offenders. Differential item functioning indicated that most items of the PCL:YV had a gender-related measurement bias. At the factor-level, this bias was most prominent for the affective factor, such that girls scored approximately 3 points lower than boys, on average, given the same level of the underlying trait. These differences are surprising given the relative consistency inmeasurement of the affective features of psychopathy reported in IRT studies comparing other demographic groups (i.e., race groups or age groups). The implications for the assessment of psychopathy in adolescent females will be discussed.

Psychopathy Can be Measured with the MMPI-2: Introducing Restructured Clinical (RC)Scale-based Measures of Psychopathy and its Facets

Martin Sellbom, Yossef S. Ben-Porath, Christopher J. Patrick, Diane M. Gartland, Dustin B. Wygant, & Kathleen P. Stafford The utility of the MMPI in assessing psychopathy has traditionally been questioned because its “psychopathy” scales primarily index the more generic social deviance component of the disorder (e.g., Hare, 1985). However, research recastingpsychopathy as a dimensional construct reflecting a maladaptive constellation of normal personality traits (cf. Lynam & Derefinko, 2006) has raised the prospect that it can be effectively assessed using a recently introduced set of MMPI-2 measures, the Restructured Clinical (RC) scales (Tellegen et al., 2003). Sellbom and Ben-Porath (2005) found that the RC scales map well onto dimensional personality traits that are relevant to the psychopathy construct, includinggrandiosity/aggressiveness (RC9), impulsivity (RC4), positive emotionality (RC2), and low negative emotionality/fear (RC7). To examine whether the MMPI-2 can capture variance in core affective-interpersonal traits of psychopathy we developedregression-based psychopathy indices in a sample of 598 undergraduate college students through double cross-validated multiple regression analyses (see Benning et al., 2005) in which the RC Scales were entered as predictors of overall scoreson the Psychopathic Personality Inventory (PPI; Lilienfeld & Andrews, 1996) and its two broad factors. The resulting indicators were further cross-validated in a sample of 650 male prison inmates. The three RC-Scale-based indicators werelabeled Global Psychopathy (PPY), Affective-Interpersonal (PPY1), and Social Deviance (PPY2). The construct validity of these indicators was examined in forensic pre-trial, correctional, and non-clinical samples. External criteria included the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version, and Levenson et al.’s (1995) and Hare’s (1985) Self-Report Psychopathy scales. Other criterion variables included measures of psychopathy-relevant personality dimensions such as fearlessness, narcissism, sensation-seeking, low empathy, and impulsivity. PPY was correlated with all these criteria in expected directions, whereas PPY1 and PPY2 showed differential associations with these criteria in a manner consistent with the psychopathy literature. We conclude that core trait elements of the psychopathy construct can be measured effectively using these new MMPI-2 RC scale-based measures.

6:30 – 6:45 PMClosing Remarks – Joseph NewmanPresident, SSSP

Poster Session A -- Thursday

Poster Session B -- Saturday