Response perseveration in psychopathic women.
Recent attempts to validate the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) as a measure of psychopathy in female offenders have been limited by a failure to examine laboratory correlates of the syndrome. We assessed 112 incarcerated women by using the PCL-R and examined their performance on a card perseveration task that has been used to demonstrate response perseveration in psychopathic men. Contrary to prediction, psychopathic women did not perseverate responding when the PCL-R was used either dimensionally or categorically. The authors discuss the implications of the results for the PCL-R and for female psychopathy more generally.
Vitale
J E
JE
Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 53706, USA. jevitale@students.wisc.edu
Newman
J P
JP
D000328:Adult; D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012720:Severity of Illness Index