Pathological personality traits and criminogenic thinking styles

Psychopathy, criminogenic cognitions and emotional responses to affective stimuli among male adult offenders

BACKGROUND

Previous research has consistently shown value in studying emotion processing with psychopathy, but the relative effect of aural and visual stimulation has hardly been considered.

AIMS

Our aims were to (1) compare reaction time and self-rated valence ((un)pleasantness), arousal and sense of being dominated by affective sounds or visual images among offenders with and without psychopathy (=/>26) on the psychopathy check-list revised; (2) investigate any associations, controlling for social desirability and depression; (3) explore the possible mediating effect of criminogenic cognitions on any relationships between psychopathy and emotional responses to affective stimuli.

METHODS

Professional educators invited all male offenders serving semi-open custody sentences in one prison to participate. After a semi structured interview to assess psychopathy, they self-reported on criminogenic cognition, depression and social desirability scales, before a computer task using standardised human and animal sounds and images. Using the self-assessment manikin, participants rated the emotional valence, arousal and dominance levels when pleasant, unpleasant and neutral sounds or images were presented.

RESULTS

About one in three prisoners completed all the ratings-120 men, of mean age 38.8 years (SD = 11.06). All had shorter reaction times to sounds than images. Offenders with high affective-interpersonal factor scores rated all types of sounds as less pleasant. Men with high psychopathy scores took longer to respond to unpleasant images than those with lower scores. There was a positive relationship between psychopathy factors and criminogenic cognitions and the external locus of criminogenic cognitions mediated the relationship between psychopathy facets and emotional responses of valence to pleasant sounds.

CONCLUSION

Our findings confirm the potential importance of emotional reactions to sounds as well as images among men with psychopathy. Given the shorter reaction times to sounds, in real life sounds could prove more provocative than images. While only small differences emerged between men above and below the PCL-R threshold, indications from facet analyses suggest that further study of sound stimuli could enhance the understanding of emotional response differences to inform interventions. Future research in this area should focus on human-related stimuli and add alexithymia measures.

Assessing Maladaptive Personality in the Forensic Context: Development and Validation of the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Forensic Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FFBF)

The current study proposes an adaptation of the PID-5 to assesses maladaptive personal traits in forensic settings. Specifically, we adapted the item set of the PID-5 Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FBF) to the forensic context and validated the resulting PID-5 Forensic Faceted Brief Form (PID-5-FFBF) using self- and informant-reports of 199 male prisoners. Exploratory factor analyses suggested a four-factor solution comprising Antagonism, Detachment, Disinhibited Aggression, and Insecurity. Antagonism and Detachment were very similar to the domains with the same name from the five-factor solution of the PID-5. Insecurity conceptually resembled Negative Affectivity. Disinhibited Aggression represented a forensically highly relevant composition of Antagonism, Disinhibition, and Negative Affectivity. We report results for this four- and the canonical five-factor solution throughout the manuscript. The PID-5-FFBF domains showed convergent associations with the corresponding Big Five personality traits. Furthermore, the PID-5-FFBF domains were differentially correlated with indicators of psychological adjustment and forensically relevant outcomes such as institutional misbehavior and risk for reoffending. In particular, Insecurity was associated with lower levels of psychological adjustment, while Antagonism and Disinhibited Aggression were associated with higher levels of institutional misbehavior and risk for reoffending. These findings provide initial evidence for the validity and utility of the PID-5-FFBF in forensic settings.

A Brief but Comprehensive Review of Research on the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders

PURPOSE OF REVIEW

Both the Alternative DSM-5 Model for Personality Disorders (AMPD) and the chapter on personality disorders (PD) in the recent version of ICD-11 embody a shift from a categorical to a dimensional paradigm for the classification of PD. We describe these new models, summarize available measures, and provide a comprehensive review of research on the AMPD.

RECENT FINDINGS

A total of 237 publications on severity (criterion A) and maladaptive traits (criterion B) of the AMPD indicate (a) acceptable interrater reliability, (b) largely consistent latent structures, (c) substantial convergence with a range of theoretically and clinically relevant external measures, and (d) some evidence for incremental validity when controlling for categorical PD diagnoses. However, measures of criterion A and B are highly correlated, which poses conceptual challenges. The AMPD has stimulated extensive research with promising findings. We highlight open questions and provide recommendations for future research.

Pathological Personality Traits and Utilitarian Moral Judgments

Recent research has highlighted important individual differences in moral judgment. The present study extends these findings by examining the associations between pathological personality traits and utilitarian moral judgments. This was accomplished by asking 2,121 Israeli community members to complete self-report measures concerning their pathological personality traits and evaluate the acceptability of utilitarian moral judgments in various sacrificial dilemmas (is it acceptable to intentionally kill one person in order to save several other people?). The results showed that the pathological personality traits of antagonism and disinhibition were positively associated with the endorsement of personal utilitarian moral judgments (i.e., those decisions requiring the individual to directly inflict harm on the would-be sacrificed individual), whereas negative affectivity was negatively associated with personal utilitarian moral judgments. Antagonism was the only pathological personality trait associated with impersonal utilitarian moral judgments (i.e., those decisions that did not require the individual to directly inflict harm on the would-be sacrificed individual). Discussion focuses on the implications of these findings for understanding the associations between pathological personality traits and moral judgments.