Abstract
Psychopathy has historically been conceptualized as a mental disorder, but there is growing evidence that it may instead be an alternative, adaptive life history strategy designed by natural selection. Although the etiology of mental disorders is not fully understood, one likely contributor is perturbations affecting neurodevelopment. Nonright-handedness is a sign of such perturbations, and therefore can be used to test these competing models. If psychopathy is a mental disorder, psychopaths should show elevated rates of nonright-handedness. However, an adaptive strategy perspective expects psychopaths to be neurologically healthy and therefore predicts typical rates of nonright-handedness. We meta-analyzed 16 studies that investigated the association between psychopathy and handedness in various populations. There was no difference in the rates of nonright-handedness between community participants high and low in psychopathy. Furthermore, there was no difference between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic offenders in rates of nonright-handedness, though there was a tendency for offenders scoring higher on the Interpersonal/Affective dimension of psychopathy to have lower rates of nonright-handedness, and for offenders scoring higher on the Behavioral dimension of psychopathy to have higher rates of nonright-handedness. Lastly, there was no difference in rates of nonright-handedness between psychopathic and nonpsychopathic mental health patients. Thus, our results fail to support the mental disorder model and partly support the adaptive strategy model. We discuss limitations of the meta-analysis and implications for theories of the origins of psychopathy.
Highlights
Psychopathy—a syndrome characterized by antisocial, impulsive, manipulative, and callous behavior—has long been considered a mental disorder
Many of the characteristics identified by Cleckley (1941/ 1976) were incorporated into the diagnostic criteria for Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD) in the second edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-II; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 1968)
The mental disorder model of psychopathy received no support in this study
Summary
Psychopathy—a syndrome characterized by antisocial, impulsive, manipulative, and callous behavior—has long been considered a mental disorder. As popularized by Cleckley (1941/1976), psychopathy was primarily thought to be an expression of trait-based personality deficits, such as “lack of remorse,” “untruthfulness and insincerity,” and “general poverty in major affective reactions,” as well as a few behavioral deficits, such as “inadequately motivated antisocial behaviour.” Making his position on the mental wellbeing of psychopaths plain, Cleckley (1941/1976) wrote “[i]n the attempt to arrive at an applicable conception, one consistent with the facts of our observation, I find it necessary first of all to postulate that the psychopath has a genuine and very serious disability, disorder, defect, or deviation” A diagnosis of APD is strongly related to the behavioral/antisocial dimension of psychopathy, but it is less strongly related to the interpersonal/affective traits of psychopathy, which are often considered the core features of psychopathy (Hare et al, 1991)
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