Psychopathic Traits, Externalizing Problems, and Prosocial Behavior: The Role of Social Dominance Orientation

Abstract

Psychopathic traits in community and referred youths are strongly associated with severe externalizing problems and low prosocial behavior. However, less is known about the mechanisms that may link youth psychopathy and these outcomes. Social dominance orientation (SDO), defined as the general individual orientation toward unequal and dominant/subordinate relationships, might represent a valuable construct to explore to better understand the association between psychopathic traits, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior. Based on this, the current study aimed to investigate the relationship between psychopathic traits, SDO, externalizing problems, and prosocial behavior in a community sample (N = 92, 45.57% females, mean age = 12.53, and SD = 0.60) and in a clinical (N = 29, 9% female, mean age = 12.57, and SD = 0.57) samples of adolescents with Oppositional Defiant Disorder or Conduct Disorder. Results showed that SDO mediated the relationship between psychopathic traits and externalizing problems and between psychopathic traits and prosocial behavior only in the clinical sample. These findings can provide valuable information on psychopathic trait correlates in youths with aggressive behavior disorders; treatment implications are discussed.

Proposed Specifiers for Conduct Disorder (PSCD) self‐report: Factor structure and validation in a community sample of Belgian youth

“…Additional studies have found support for the four‐factor structure across investigations in Belgium (Colins et al, 2023), China (Luo et al, 2021), Iran (Elhami Athar et al, 2022; Elhami Athar et al, 2023), Italy (Muratori et al, 2021), Portugal (Ribeiro da Silva et al, 2023), and the United States (Salekin et al, 2022). Additionally, studies have found support for the reliability of the PSCD scale and its relation to theoretically meaningful correlates (Batky et al, 2020; Bontemps, Batky, Houser, & Salekin, 2022; Grossi et al, 2023; Luo et al, 2021; Muratori et al, 2021; Ribeiro da Silva et al, 2023). Specifically, the PSCD has been shown to correlate positively with alternate measures of psychopathy and to exhibit good discriminant validity and to relate to a variety of external correlates such as reaction to unfamiliar peers, proactive aggression, reactive aggression, substance use, and arrest history (e.g., Salekin et al, 2022).…”