Symptoms of internalizing and externalizing psychopathology were obtained via structured clinical interviews. Psychopathic traits were indexed using scores on the Multidimensional Personality Questionnaire (MPQ). Participants were 626 pairs of 17-year-old male and female twins from the community. The current study was designed to fill these gaps in the literature. Additionally, no studies have examined etiological connections between psychopathic traits and the broad psychopathological domains of internalizing (mood and anxiety) and externalizing (antisocial behavior, substance abuse). Little research has examined genetic and environmental contributions to psychopathic personality traits.
The results support alternative etiological pathways to antisocial and criminal behavior that are evident in personality structure as well as gender similarities and differences in the manifestation of psychopathic personalities.
Primary psychopaths (n = 31) exhibited few distinguishing personality features but were prolific criminals especially in regards to non-violent crime, and exhibited relatively few mental health problems despite substantial exposure to traumatic events. Secondary psychopaths (n = 39) were characterized by personality traits of negative emotionality and low behavioral constraint, an early onset of antisocial and criminal behavior, greater substance use and abuse, more violent behavior and institutional misconduct, and more mental health problems including symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder and suicide attempts. We extended this literature by identifying similar psychopathic subtypes in female prisoners on the basis of personality structure using model-based cluster analysis. Recent empirical investigations utilizing male prisoners have begun to validate clinical conceptualizations of primary and secondary psychopathy subtypes.
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