H. Cleckley (1976) maintained that psychopaths are relatively immune to suicide, but substantial evidence exists for a relationship between antisocial deviance and suicidal acts. This study was the first to explicitly examine suicidal history among psychopathic individuals as defined by R. D. Hare's (1991) Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (PCL-R). Male prison inmates (N = 313) were assessed using the PCL-R and DSM-III-R and DSM-IV criteria (American Psychiatric Association, 1987, 1994) for antisocial personality disorder (APD), and they completed A. Tellegen's (1982) Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Presence or absence of prior suicide attempts was coded from structured interview and prison file records. Suicide history was significantly related to PCL-R Factor 2 (which reflects chronic antisocial deviance) and to APD diagnosis but was unrelated to PCL-R Factor 1, which encompasses affective and interpersonal features of psychopathy. Higher order MPQ dimensions of Negative Emotionality and low Constraint were found to account for the relationship between history of suicidal attempts and antisocial deviance, indicating that temperament traits may represent a common vulnerability for both.

The influence of personality and childhood abuse on suicidal behaviors and psychopathy was examined among female prisoners. Scores on the affective/interpersonal component (Factor 1; F1) and the antisocial deviance (Factor 2; F2) component of psychopathy were obtained from the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (R. D. Hare, 1991). Suicide attempt and childhood physical and sexual abuse history were coded from interviews and prison files, and personality was assessed using the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (A. Tellegen, in press). Suicide attempts were positively associated with F2 and negatively associated with F1, and each factor accounted for unique variance in suicidality. Path analyses demonstrated that personality mediated the effects of physical abuse on F2, but sexual abuse accounted for unique variance in both suicide attempts and F2. Abuse and personality accounted for minimal variance in F1. These results are discussed in relation to the identification of individuals at risk for both self-and other-harm behaviors. Keywordspsychopathy; suicide; female prisoners; personality; abuse Given the increasing rates of criminal conviction and incarceration among women (Jordan, Schlenger, Fairbank, & Caddell, 1996), researchers have focused greater attention on this group of offenders. Most studies have confirmed that women are at high risk for suicidal behaviors during incarceration, and researchers have reported prevalence rates of 25% to 50% for prior suicide attempts in female prison samples (Blaauw, Arensman, Kraaij, Winkel, & Bout, 2002). Thus, this population of inmates is particularly worthy of study because of high rates of both self-harm and other-harm behaviors. In addition, an extensive research literature within the past several years has confirmed a strong association between antisocial and suicidal behaviors, particularly among externalizing men (Ivanoff & Jang, 1991;Marcus & Alcabes, 1993); however, minimal research has been conducted specifically with female criminal samples (see Verona & Vitale, in press).The current study is the first to explicitly examine relationships between suicidal behavior and antisocial-psychopathic tendencies in a female prison sample. The goal of this study was to Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Edelyn Verona, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820. E-mail: everona@uiuc.edu. Edelyn Verona, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; Brian M. Hicks and Christopher J. Patrick, Department of Psychology, University of Minnesota. NIH Public Access NIH-PA Author ManuscriptNIH-PA Author Manuscript NIH-PA Author Manuscript extend previous research on this connection by attempting to understand whether psychopathic personality traits, in contrast to antisocial deviance per se, would be related to suicidal behaviors in women. Specifically, we examined the differential relationships of the affectiveinterpersonal (primary psychopathy traits) and antisocial ...

have proposed that when childhood abuse is verbal (rather than sexual or physical), the child is more likely to develop a negative self-schema because the negative self-cognitions are directly supplied to the child by the abuser (e.g., "you are stupid"). Methods: In a test of this theory in adult participants, and drawing on the National Comorbidity Survey (NCS) (N = 5877), we investigate the mediating role of current levels of self-criticism on the relationship between retrospective reports of parental verbal abuse, as well as sexual and physical abuse, and adult internalizing symptoms. Results: We found self-criticism, but not dependency traits, to fully mediate the relationship between childhood verbal abuse perpetrated by parents and internalizing (depression, anxiety) symptoms. On the other hand, self-criticism was only a partial mediator of the relationship between the other types of abuse and internalizing symptoms. Limitations: The NCS data is cross-sectional, which limits any firm conclusions regarding causality. While these results are suggestive that self-criticism is a mediator of the relationship between abuse and internalizing symptoms, longitudinal data are necessary to help rule out alternative explanations. Conclusions: Results of this study suggest that childhood abuse experiences, and in particular verbal abuse, may confer risk for internalizing disorders in part because verbal abuse influences the development of a self-critical style.

Suicidal behavior among individuals with externalizing symptoms is not necessarily a result of comorbid depressive or other internalizing disorder. Thus, persons exhibiting antisocial behaviors should receive rigorous assessment for suicidal ideation and behavior.

Despite considerable evidence that psychopathic criminals are deviant in their emotional reactions, few studies have examined responses to both pleasurable and aversive stimuli or assessed the role of different facets of psychopathy in affective deviations. This study investigated physiological reactions to emotional sounds in prisoners selected according to scores on the 2 factors of Hare's Psychopathy Checklist--Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991). Offenders high on the PCL-R emotional-interpersonal factor, regardless of scores on the social deviance factor, showed diminished skin conductance responses to both pleasant and unpleasant sounds, suggesting a deficit in the action mobilization component of emotional response. Offenders who scored high only on the social deviance factor showed a delay in heart rate differentiation between affective and neutral sounds. These findings indicate abnormal reactivity to both positive and negative emotional stimuli in psychopathic individuals, and suggest differing roles for the 2 facets of psychopathy in affective processing deviations.

The current study investigated how mechanisms of attention that have been well-characterized in the cognitive psychology literature (Lavie, Hirst, De Fockert, & Viding, 2004;Maylor & Lavie, 1998) may be differentially associated with psychopathic traits in non-incarcerated men. Previous research on cognition and psychopathy indicates that primary psychopathic traits are associated with overfocused attention and/or reduced processing of information peripheral to the focus of attention. Conversely, deficits in executive functioning, such as working memory and cognitive control, are implicated in secondary psychopathic traits. Results revealed a significant relationship between traits typically associated with primary psychopathy (e.g., low anxiety, social dominance, fearlessness, callousness) and reduced processing of task-irrelevant distractors, suggesting diminished basic attentional capacity among individuals high on these traits. In contrast, some characteristics linked to secondary psychopathy (e.g., social alienation, cynicism) showed a positive relationship with impaired working memory functioning, indicative of deficits in cognitive control, whereas other traits (i.e., self-centeredness, antagonism) did not. These results suggest that psychopathic traits are differentially related to selective impairments in attentional functioning, which may help explain the observed heterogeneity in psychopathic manifestations. Keywordspsychopathy; Psychopathic Personality Inventory; selective attention; working memory Cleckley (1976) conceptualized psychopathy as a constellation of abnormal personality and affective traits (e.g., superficial charm, low neuroticism, shallow affect) that lead to inadequately motivated antisocial behavior. The term primary psychopathy is often used to refer to the dysfunctional personality profile outlined by Cleckley. However, researchers have also identified secondary pathways to a psychopathic lifestyle, such as poor socialization, low intelligence, or an externalizing predisposition (Krueger et al., 2002;Lykken, 1995, Newman & Brinkley, 1997. Despite presumable etiological differences, both subtypes of psychopathy are associated with deficient self-regulation and frequent antisocial behavior. To parse the heterogeneity of psychopathy, researchers have attempted to identify cognitive and affective processes that are differentially associated with primary versus secondary psychopathic offenders. Given growing empirical evidence that psychopathy is a dimensional construct Correspondence concerning this article may be addressed to Naomi Sadeh, Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at UrbanaChampaign, 603 E. Daniel Street, Champaign, IL 61820, (608) 698-2216, email: nsamimi2@uiuc.edu. Publisher's Disclaimer: The following manuscript is the final accepted manuscript. It has not been subjected to the final copyediting, fact-checking, and proofreading required for formal publication. It is not the definitive, publisher-authenticated version. The American Psychological Asso...

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Evidence suggests that the combination of the interpersonal-affective (F1) and impulsive-antisocial (F2) features of psychopathy may be associated with borderline personality disorder (BPD), specifically among women (e.g., Coid, 1993; Hicks, Vaidyana-than, & Patrick, 2010). However, empirical research explicitly examining gendered relationships between BPD and psychopathy factors is lacking. To further inform this area of research, we investigated the hypothesis that the interplay between the two psychopathy factors is associated with BPD among women across two studies. Study 1 consisted of a college sample of 318 adults (51% women), and Study 2 consisted of a large sample of 488 female prisoners. The interpersonal-affective (F1) and impulsiveantisocial psychopathy (F2) scores, measured with self-report and clinician-rated indices, respectively, were entered as explanatory variables in regression analyses to investigate their unique contributions to BPD traits. Across two independent samples, results indicated that the interaction of high F1 and F2 psychopathy scores was associated with BPD in women. This association was found to be specific to women in Study 1. These results suggest that BPD and psychopathy, at least as they are measured by current instruments, overlap in women and, accordingly, may reflect gender-differentiated phenotypic expressions of similar dispositional vulnerabilities.