The relationship between the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised and the MMPI-2: a pilot study

Psychopathic personality traits stress immunity and social potency moderate the relationship between emotional competence and cognitive functions in depression

Background

Psychopathic personality traits (PPT) and depression have both been shown to worsen emotional and cognitive functions. Moreover, PPT and depression share similar underlying neuronal circuits tapping into the emotional and cognitive domains. However, little is known about the influence of PPT on emotion and cognition in individuals with depression.

Objectives

This study aimed to examine the correlative relationships and moderating role of PPT in the association between emotional competence and cognitive functions in individuals with depression.

Methods

Data from 373 individuals diagnosed with depression (158 males, 215 females) were examined within a cohort study. Subjects filled out validated questionnaires surveying PPT and emotional competences. Furthermore, a comprehensive neuropsychological test battery was administered.

Results

Correlation analyses revealed a significant positive association between emotional competence and cognitive functions. Further, negative associations between emotional competence and the PPT "Blame Externalisation" and "Careless Nonplanfulness," as well as positive associations with psychopathic "Social Potency" and "Stress Immunity" were found. Moderation analyses indicated a significant positive influence of psychopathic "Stress Immunity" and "Social Influence" on the relationship between emotional competence and cognitive functions.

Conclusion

The findings highlight the importance of integrating PPT in depression research. Considering PPT in depression treatment could also facilitate the therapeutic process by identifying individual traits as resilience-strengthening or potentially harmful factors for depressive symptomatology. This study represents a stepping stone for further research regarding the role of personality traits in psychiatric disorders and their treatment.

The dark triad and depressive symptoms among chinese adolescents: moderated mediation models of age and emotion regulation strategies

Dark Triad has been found to relate with depressive symptoms, but the underlying mechanism was rarely investigated. In the present study, we examined the mediating effect of two emotion regulation strategies (cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression) and the moderating effect of gender and age. 709 Chinese adolescents aged 12-18 years (M = 14.54, SD = 1.70;55.3% girls) filled out the Dirty Dozen, Emotion Regulation Questionnaire and the 10-item of Center for Epidemiological Studies Depression Scale. As expected, Dark Triad was related with increased levels of depression and emotion regulation strategies acted as mediators in these associations. Suppression mediated the relationship between Machiavellianism and depression. Reappraisal and suppression mediated the link between psychopathy and depression. Reappraisal mediated the association between narcissism and depression. Besides, age moderated the effect of Machiavellianism on reappraisal, suggesting Machiavellianism had a negative impact on reappraisal for younger adolescents, but not for older adolescents. Age also moderated the effect of reappraisal on depression, indicating the negative effect of reappraisal on depression was stronger for younger adolescents than for older adolescents. These results address how Dark Triad traits affect depression via emotion regulation strategies and indicate the effectiveness of Dark Triad and emotion regulation strategies may change across age groups.

The Differentiation of Narrative Styles in Individuals with High Psychopathic Deviate

The current study was designed to show the differentiation of narrative styles in individuals with high scores in Psychopathic deviate (Pd) scale and develop a method enabling identification of psychopathic personality traits based on linguistic indicators. 600 spontaneous narrations related to emotional topics have been examined for grammar, syntactic, and lexical indicators. The indicators have been selected based on a review related to language of psychopaths. The narrations were written by 200 persons who were also tested for psychopathic deviate and intelligence level, including prisoners diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder. Independent judges identified the linguistic indicators which were then counted for each person with the use of computer software. The configuration profiles of the linguistic indicators/narrative styles were established using k-mean clustering method. Then, ANOVA was performed to show which clusters differentiate the levels of psychopathic deviate. The findings show there are two configurations of language features (important: single features were not examined) associated with high levels of psychopathic deviate patterns. Two narrative styles were identified, labelled demonstrative-digressive-egocentric-emotional-dogmatic and reserved-focused on the topic-repetitive, which indicate high psychopathic deviate traits. The ROC curves were applied to establish the prediction of the narrative styles for high psychopathic deviate scores.