Gorenstein (1982) suggested that psychopaths exhibit deficits in cognitive processes commonly associated with frontal lobe functioning, but other investigators reported conflicting findings (Hare, 1984;Sutker, Moan, & Allain, 1983). There is also evidence indicating that intellectual level influences performance on measures of frontal lobe integrity and mitigates against expression of cognitive dyscontrol, especially among psychopaths. The present study extended previous research by comparing clinical samples of psychopaths and nonpsychopaths identiied by objective instrument and behavioral self-report data. Dependent measures included tests of concept formation, abstraction, flexibility, planning, and control. Compared to men defined as normal controls, male psychopaths showed no greater deficits in abstraction, flexibility, control, or planning. Intelligence significantly influenced performances on dependent measures for both groups. Results suggest that analogies between psychopathy and frontal lobe deficits are premature, if not unsupported.Several investigators have suggested that psychopaths exhibit cognitive deficits similar to those associated with compromise of the frontal lobes-that is, fluctuating attention, inflexibility, dyscontrol, abstraction difficulties, and perseveration (Gorenstein & Newman, 1980;Schalling, 1978). Gorenstein (1982) compared psychopaths to frontal lesion patients and described them as evidencing impaired cognitive flexibility and a deficiency similar to perseveration in cortically damaged patients. He showed that psychopathic Veterans Administration (VA) inpatients and outpatients performed worse than other psychiatric patients using the Wisconsin Card Sorting Test (WCST) measure of perseverative errors. In contrast, Hare (1984) found that groups of low, medium, and high psychopathic prisoners did not differ on tasks purported to measure frontal lobe functions, and he criticized Gorenstein (1982) for methods used to subdivide his patients into diagnostic categories, for possible group differences in age, education, ability, and substance abuse, and for inclusion of college-student controls. These were problems also identified by Sutker, Moan, and Allain (1983), who showed that among psychopathic and normal control prisoners, psychopaths were characterized by no greater tendencies to persist in incorrect responding, to disregard cues suggesting the need to modify behaviors, or to proceed impulsively in problem solving. Stuss and Benson (1984) pointed out that the neuropsychological picture secondary to prefrontal pathology is a complex, Appreciation is expressed to James T. Russell. Jeffrey A. West, and Anne B. Sowder for their assistance in recruitment of study participants.