Assessing psychopathic attributes in a noninstitutionalized population.

TLDR

The study developed primary and secondary psychopathy scales and an antisocial action scale to assess and validate antisocial dispositions in 487 university students. The scales correlated with boredom susceptibility and disinhibition but not with experience seeking or thrill seeking; secondary psychopathy was linked to trait anxiety, and regression showed disinhibition, primary and secondary psychopathy, and sex best predicted antisocial action, supporting a continuous psychopathy dimension and opposing a single behavioral inhibition system.

Abstract

The present study examined antisocial dispositions in 487 university students. Primary and secondary psychopathy scales were developed to assess a protopsychopathic interpersonal philosophy. An antisocial action scale also was developed for purposes of validation. The primary, secondary, and antisocial action scales were correlated with each other and with boredom susceptibility and disinhibition but not with experience seeking and thrill and adventure seeking. Secondary psychopathy was associated with trait anxiety. Multiple regression analysis revealed that the strongest predictors of antisocial action were disinhibition, primary psychopathy, secondary psychopathy, and sex, whereas thrill and adventure seeking was a negative predictor. This argues against a singular behavioral inhibition system mediating both antisocial and risk-taking behavior. These findings are also consistent with the view that psychopathy is a continuous dimension.