Stability of psychopathy in a prospective longitudinal study: Results from the Cambridge Study in delinquent development

Abstract

To further understand psychopathy within a Developmental and Life‐Course Criminology perspective, the current article investigates the stability and change in psychopathy from childhood to middle age. The Cambridge Study in delinquent development is a prospective longitudinal study of 411 males, where psychopathy was coded based on contemporanously collected data from young people and in adulthood. Psychopathy in middle age was assessed in a medical interview. The findings indicate a high degree of stability of psychopathy across the life‐course. To explain stability and change, childhood factors that might predict this were investigated. Few factors were related to stability and change across the life‐course. Poor supervision, poor housing, a large family, and having a convicted father were associated with any change. A depressed mother was associated with a later decrease in psychopathy. This investigation has implications not only for the downward extension of psychopathy to childhood, but also for the understanding of the development of criminal and antisocial behavior.

Does a conduct disorder factor increment the capacity of the Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory-Short to predict criminal recidivism?

“…There is evidence that PSCD is significantly associated with arrest history as indicated by ever prevalence of arrest and number of arrests (Salekin et al, 2022); however, no study to our knowledge has examined its association with recidivism among juveniles, more specifically the role of its novel CD factor in incrementally predicting youth criminal recidivism. For academic and practical reasons, the current research is important because it helps to identify the features of psychopathic personality among youth that are most related to recidivism, which can inform not only treatment and correctional interventions but also shed light on the developmental processes of psychopathy to inform prevention efforts given the etiology of the disorder is attributable to individual-level and environmental-level constructs (cf., Bergstrøm and Farrington, 2021;Brazil, 2023;DeLisi, 2009;Farrington and Bergstrøm, 2021;Zara et al, 2023).…”