Do core interpersonal and affective traits of PCL-R psychopathy interact with antisocial behavior and disinhibition to predict violence?
The utility of psychopathy measures in predicting violence is largely explained by their assessment of social deviance (e.g., antisocial behavior; disinhibition). A key question is whether social deviance interacts with the core interpersonal-affective traits of psychopathy to predict violence. Do core psychopathic traits multiply the (already high) risk of violence among disinhibited individuals with a dense history of misbehavior? This meta-analysis of 32 effect sizes (N = 10,555) tested whether an interaction between the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 2003) Interpersonal-Affective and Social Deviance scales predicted violence beyond the simple additive effects of each scale. Results indicate that Social Deviance is more uniquely predictive of violence (d = .40) than Interpersonal-Affective traits (d = .11), and these two scales do not interact (d = .00) to increase power in predicting violence. In fact, Social Deviance alone would predict better than the Interpersonal-Affective scale and any interaction in 81% and 96% of studies, respectively. These findings have fundamental practical implications for risk assessment and theoretical implications for some conceptualizations of psychopathy.
Kennealy
Patrick J
PJ
Department of Psychology and Social Behavior, University of California, Irvine, Irvine, CA 92697-7085, USA. pkenneal@uci.edu
Skeem
Jennifer L
JL
Walters
Glenn D
GD
Camp
Jacqueline
J
D000987:Antisocial Personality Disorder / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000523:psychology*; D016001:Confidence Intervals; D006801:Humans; D016017:Odds Ratio; D010555:Personality Inventory / Q000592:standards / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D011569:Psychiatric Status Rating Scales / Q000592:standards* / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D015203:Reproducibility of Results; D018570:Risk Assessment; D012680:Sensitivity and Specificity; D014754:Violence / Q000523:psychology*