Fearless Dominance/Boldness Is Not Strongly Related to Externalizing Behaviors: An Item Response-Based Analysis

Abstract

There is substantial and ongoing debate regarding the centrality of Fearless Dominance/Boldness (FD/B) to psychopathic personality due, in part, to its generally weak relations with externalizing behaviors. In response to these findings, proponents of FD/B have offered two hypotheses. First, FD/B may have nonlinear associations with externalizing outcomes such that FD/B may lead to resilience at moderate levels, but an overabundance of FD/B will yield maladaptive behavioral outcomes. Second, FD/B may be related to antisocial outcomes when paired with high scores on other psychopathic traits such as self-centered impulsivity, meanness, or disinhibition. The current study tests these two possibilities using two large samples (Study 1: 787 undergraduates; Study 2: 596 Amazon’s Mechanical Turk participants). An item response theory scoring approach particularly sensitive to curvilinearity was used to maximize our ability to find a true curvilinear effect, if present. No evidence in favor of the curvilinearity hypothesis was found. Only a single significant interaction predicting substance use was observed between boldness and meanness. These findings contribute to a growing literature raising concerns regarding the relevance of FD/B to psychopathy.

Incremental and interactive relations of triarchic psychopathy measure scales with antisocial and prosocial correlates: A preregistered replication of Gatner et al. (2016).

“…Although we did not closely replicate effects across all reproducibility indices, our findings regarding the importance of Boldness are not only consistent with Gatner and colleagues (2016) but also those of several other relatively comprehensive and well-powered tests of these hypotheses (Crowe et al, 2021; Vize et al, 2016; Weiss et al, 2019). Although interactive effects between basic personality traits (e.g., agreeableness × conscientiousness) or psychopathic traits (e.g., Meanness × Boldness) are often proffered (Lilienfeld et al, 2019), there is little data to support their existence or importance (Benning & Smith, 2019).…”

“…However, neither hypothesis is well supported by the existing empirical literature. At all levels, boldness appears largely unrelated to antisocial behavior and broader externalizing psychopathology (Crowe et al, 2021; Vize et al, 2016; Weiss et al, 2019). Isolated interactive effects have been demonstrated in which high levels of boldness enhanced antisocial outcomes in the context of elevated disinhibition (e.g., conduct problems, Gottfried et al, 2019; hypersexuality, Kastner & Sellbom, 2012; acceptance of sexually predatory tactics, Marcus & Norris, 2014; predatory aggression, Smith et al, 2013); however, these results do not reflect a consistent pattern across outcomes theoretically associated with psychopathy (Crowe et al, 2021; Gatner et al, 2016; Hanniball et al, 2019; Vize et al, 2016; Weiss et al, 2019).…”

Do the Big Five personality traits interact to predict life outcomes? Systematically testing the prevalence, nature, and effect size of trait-by-trait moderation

“…In psychopathy research, there has been interest in conceptualizing (e.g., Lilienfeld et al, 2019) and testing interactions among psychopathic personality domains with the notion that “classic” psychopathic presentations like those described by Cleckley (1941) are found when two or more traits are both present (e.g., psychopathy = high in boldness, disinhibition, and meanness). However, Benning and Smith (2019) noted that such tests of interactions among psychopathy traits have yielded mostly null results (e.g., Crowe et al, 2021; Gatner et al, 2016; Vize et al, 2016; Weiss et al, 2019; c.f. Kastner & Sellbom, 2012; Marcus & Norris, 2014; Smith et al, 2013).…”

Moderation effects in personality disorder research.

“…There is consistent agreement that psychopathy is composed of traits related to antagonism (i.e., callousness and manipulativeness) and disinhibition but disagreement for traits related to fearlessness or boldness (Lilienfeld et al, 2012; Miller & Lynam, 2012). In light of the absence of evidence for the relation between boldness and psychopathy-relevant outcomes such as externalizing behaviors (Crowe et al, 2021; Miller & Lynam, 2012; Sleep et al, 2019), some researchers have posited interactive effects between boldness and other psychopathy components.…”