Gender and psychopathy: an overview of important issues and introduction to the special issue

Abstract

One of the most important concepts to ever emerge in forensic psychology and law is psychopathy. It would be difficult to exaggerate the profound effect the construct has had on research and practice in correctional psychology, psychiatry, and criminology. Much less pronounced has been an interest in understanding the potential relevance and practical implications that this personality disorder might have for providing insights into antisocial behaviors and crimes committed by girls and women. In this paper we provide an overview of some of the pressing issues confronting clinicians and researchers and provide an introduction to this special issue dedicated to gender and psychopathy.

Empathy, morality and psychopathic traits in women

“…Furthermore, these biases were specific of the affective-interpersonal dimension of psychopathy, strengthening the views that the two dimensions of psychopathy make distinct contributions to emotional and moral processing; and that while psychopathy might be manifested differently in females and males, either due to gender-role socialization or biological differences (e.g. Nicholls & Petrila, 2005), its central characteristics appear to be similar. Future work with larger samples from community and forensic settings should further probe the generalizability of these important preliminary findings and the precise extent to which different components of psychopathy present distinct associations with particular empathic and moral processes.…”

“…Research so far indicates that emotional and personality correlates of psychopathy such as glibness, grandiosity, lack of empathic concern are akin across genders, but similarities in behavioural correlates, such as criminal behaviour and type of aggression, seem to be less consistent (see Verona & Vitale, 2006, for a review). It has been suggested that differences found across genders are mainly differential expressions of the same underlying construct (Nicholls & Petrila, 2005), and that the same personality traits may confer risk for different forms of behaviour for women versus men (Verona, Sprague, & Javdani, 2012). …”

“…Nicholls & Petrila, 2005;Rogstad & Rogers, 2008), we know very little about how females with high levels of psychopathic traits perform on empathy and moral processing tasks, and whether they appear similar to males with high levels of psychopathic traits. A number of experimental studies to date have demonstrated that atypical empathic and moral processing are central features of psychopathic personality in males (e.g.…”

Tendências de personalidade psicopática e comportamento antissocial em jovens delinquentes do sexo feminino e masculino

“…A literatura geral é bastante consistente relativamente ao facto de os comportamentos antissociais, delinquentes ou agressivos terem frequentemente uma estrutura de personalidade psicopática como correlata (e.g., Edens, Guy, & Fernandez, 2003;Farrington, 2005;Loney, Frick, Clements, Ellis, & Kerlin, 2003;Nicholls & Petrila, 2005;Robinson, 2005;Seagrave & Grisso, 2002), mas a literatura sobre diferenças entre sexos na delinquência com que se possam contrastar estes achados não abunda. Ainda assim, a investigação existente é sugestiva de uma estrutura de personalidade com traços mais marcados de psicopatia no sexo masculino (e.g., Campbell, Porter, & Santor, 2004;Marsee, Silverthorn, & Frick, 2005;Penney & Moretti, 2007;Strand & Belfrage, 2005;Ugueto, 2005), embora noutros estudos (e.g., Vaughn, 2005) também não se tenham encontrado diferenças entre sexos nos resultados do APSD.…”

Red Collar Crime

“…Violence is a solution that is available to them as other forms to control someone such as deceit, manipulation, and charming someone. Female psychopaths were comparable to psychopathic males in terms of irresponsible lifestyles (Rogers, Jordan, & Harrison, 2007), higher unemployment rates and relationship instability (Salekin et al, 1998) more promiscuous behavior (Grann, 2000) and relying on manipulation to achieve goals (Nicholls & Petrila, 2005). Regardless of gender, they do not value traditional social norms, close relationships, can be vengeful, physically violent, and victimize others for personal gain (O'Connor, 2002).…”