The influence of environmental and genetic factors on the development of psychopathy: A systematic review

Abstract

The aim of this review is to understand what is known about the genetic and environmental influences on the development of psychopathy. Psychopathy is considered a personality structure in which affective, interpersonal, and behavioral deficits are evidenced. Both genetic and environmental effects contribute to the development of this personality structure. In this systematic review, documents from several databases were analyzed, following the PRISMA guidelines. To avoid publication and source selection bias, these database searches were supplemented by an additional manual search. A total of 159 studies, published between 1981 and 2021, were identified from all databases and search methods. The studies' abstracts were available, and 37 studies were selected. In addition, two studies were included from the manual research. Thus, a total of 39 studies were selected for review. The results of the studies suggest that the monoamine oxidase genotype (MAOA), dopamine transporter gene (DAT1), dopamine receptor D5 (DRD5) and serotonin transporter gene (5HTTLPR) are frequently associated with antisocial behavior, although with different behavioral manifestations between men and women, and that the dopamine receptor gene alleles (DRD2 and DRD4) are good delinquency predictors. In addition, genetic and non-shared environmental factors are those with the most influence on antisocial behavior, specifically psychopathy, with the correlation values of monozygotic twins being higher than those of dizygotic twins, thus demonstrating the importance of genes. It was concluded that genetic factors influence the development of both antisocial behavior and psychopathy. However, environmental factors often contribute to the exacerbation of genetic factors.