Psychopathic Subtypes and Associations with Mental Health Problems in an Incarcerated Sample of Adolescent Boys

Abstract

Research suggests a distinction between high and low anxious psychopathic individuals. However, research on psychopathic subtypes in youth offender populations is largely lacking. Therefore, this study examined psychopathic subtypes in a sample of incarcerated adolescents, and explored the relationship of these subtypes with various (mental health) problems. The Youth Psychopathic traits Inventory was used to measure psychopathic traits in a sample of 299 incarcerated adolescent boys. Related (mental health) problems were measured with, among others, the Youth Self-report. Within a high psychopathic subsample of incarcerated boys, two psychopathic subtypes were identified using Latent Class Analyses: a low anxious-depressed and a high anxious-depressed psychopathic type. Both subtypes showed high scores on psychopathic traits, although high anxious-depressed psychopathic boys scored lower on the affective traits of psychopathy than low anxious-depressed psychopathic boys. High anxious-depressed psychopathic boys reported more mental health problems than non-psychopathic and low anxious-depressed psychopathic boys. This study provided support for the presence of psychopathic subtypes in a sample of incarcerated boys. The characteristics of these two subtypes are generally in line with former descriptions of low anxious and high anxious psychopathic variants.