Investigating the Role of Parental Care and Executive Function in the Neurodevelopment of Psychopathy: A Moderated Expression Model of “Successful” Psychopathy
Year: 2024
Type: dissertation
Study design: Observational Study
Abstract: Psychopathy has been an important risk factor in predicting maladaptive outcomes and antisocial behaviour. However, some research has also explored “successful” psychopathy: individuals with psychopathic traits who avoid negative outcomes (e.g., criminal or antisocial behaviour) and/or those whose psychopathic traits are used to their advantage. The Moderated Expression model (Lilienfeld et al., 2015) posits that that while successful and unsuccessful psychopaths have the same core personality traits, other factors can moderate how these traits are manifested. For example, the quality of parental care, as well as executive function (EF) skills are among the potential factors in predicting antisocial outcomes in individuals with psychopathic traits, yet to date, research has not looked at these together in predicting psychopathy success. The program of study presented in this dissertation explored these factors through a Moderated-Expression framework: Study 1 used an adolescent sample of 229 girls and 165 boys from the community, and examined the role of parental care in predicting success outcomes in youth with Callous-Unemotional (CU) traits. Study 2 expanded on this and examined the role of parental warmth and neglect on success outcomes in adults with psychopathic traits, both directly, and through their effect on EF skills. This study recruited a community sample of 293 men and 301 women. Importantly, Study 2 included multiple sub-components of EF, in order to help address the mixed findings in the research to date, and to ascertain how these functions may work together. Both studies included multiple maladaptive outcomes as well as a proxy measure of social success. Overall, both studies found that (a) parental warmth decreased the strength of the relationship between the core psychopathic traits and multiple maladaptive outcomes; (b) parental neglect increased the risk of anti-sociality and multiple maladaptive outcomes; (c) the pattern of effects differed depending on the gender of the participant and of the parent. Furthermore, while girls and women were lower in overt physical aggression, psychopathic traits still predicted relational aggression, other maladaptive outcomes, and lower social success, highlighting the importance of using diverse measures of success and to look at the patterns across and within gender.
Author: Gauthier, Nathalie Yvonne
Language: English
Subfield: Clinical Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W6982599559