Content Meets Process: Using Attributions and Standards to Inform Cognitive Vulnerability in Psychopathy, Antisocial Personality Disorder, and Depression

Abstract

Psychopathic individuals' cognitive vulnerability consists of failing to attend to non-dominant cues (Gorenstein & Newman, 1980; Patterson & Newman, 1993). Weargue thatmultiple attributions and standards are activated by a given situation in varying degrees and that attentional capacity is required to use non-dominant attributions or standards. Thus, constraints in processing moderate the content that underlies behavior. More specifically, we discuss how the process-based variable of dominance can inform understanding of aggression in Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) and negative affect in depression. Conversely, we use attributions and standards to clarify how the process-based cognitive vulnerability associated with psychopathy results in dysregulated violence, hostile attributions, lack of responsibility, and violation of standards. We conclude that the dimension of dominance, valuable in specifying the psychopathic cognitive vulnerability, has utility in elucidating other cognitive vulnerabilities and that the content-based models associated with aggression and depression lend specificity to process-based vulnerabilities.