A Meta-Analysis Exploring the Relationship Between Psychopathy and Instrumental Versus Reactive Violence

Abstract

The present meta-analysis explored the relationship between psychopathy and instrumental and reactive violence with a focus on factor and facet scores. A total of 53 studies (reporting on 55 unique samples, N = 8,753) from both published and unpublished sources were included. Results from random-effects analyses indicated moderate and significant relationships between psychopathy and both instrumental and reactive violence. There was some evidence that the Interpersonal facet was more important for instrumental violence, while Factor 2 (social deviance) was more important for reactive violence. The Lifestyle facet appeared important in explaining both violent outcomes. Effect sizes were significantly smaller for clinical rating scales compared with informant and self-report scales. Significant between-study variability was partly explained by mean age of the sample and type of outcome measure. The current findings do not support the conclusion that psychopathy is more related to instrumental violence as opposed to reactive violence.

How do different dimensions of adolescent narcissism impact the relation between callous‐unemotional traits and self‐reported aggression?

“…Whereas youth high in impulsive-irresponsible psychopathic traits tend to engage in more reactive forms of aggression consistent with anger coping difficulties, youth with elevated CU profiles engage in more calculated, predatory (i.e., proactive) aggressive acts against others in addition to high rates of reactive aggression and violent delinquency (Blais, Solodukhin, & Forth, 2014;Frick, Ray, Thornton, & Kahn, 2014;Kimonis et al, 2014). CU traits can be further conceptualized as involving different sets of features, including callousness (i.e., lack of empathy, disregard for others), uncaring (i.e., lack of concern for rules or regarding one's performance), and unemotionality (i.e., lack of affective response to distressing stimuli, lack of emotional expression; Kimonis et al, 2008).…”

Aggression in Children with Conduct Problems and Callous-Unemotional Traits: Social Information Processing and Response to Peer Provocation

“…Though the reactive-proactive classification system has dominated CP and CU research, parallel research linking violence and psychopathy, a multifactor construct in which CU is one component (see Blais et al 2014), instead categorizes aggression by its intended outcome. In this system, instrumental aggression provides the aggressor some advantage toward achieving a goal (Atkins and Stoff 1993), while hostile aggression does not advance progress toward a goal but instead inflicts pain or injury on others (Bushman and Anderson 2001;King and Waschbusch 2010).…”

Agresividad reactiva, proactiva y mixta: análisis de los factores de riesgo individual

“…Esto nos sugiere que no es exclusivamente la impulsividad la que discrimina los comportamientos agresivos reactivos, sino que también la presencia de conductas antisociales de carácter más instrumental está presente en la agresión reactiva adolescente. Precisamente, esos hallazgos van en la línea de investigaciones recientes que plantean que la conducta antisocial ya no se ve exclusivamente vinculada con la agresión de tipo proactivo, sino que también lo estaría, aunque en menor medida, con una agresión de tipo reactivo (Andreu et al, 2012(Andreu et al, , 2013Blais, Solodukhin y Forth, 2014).…”