Antisocial Personality Characteristics Research Articles

Five factors of impulsivity: Unique pathways to borderline and antisocial personality features and subsequent alcohol problems

Impulsivity, a multidimensional behavioral mechanism, commonly preceding externalizing maladaptive behavior and psychopathology, is a diagnostic criterion central to both antisocial and borderline personality disorders (American Psychiatric Association; APA, 2013). This study tested a path model of associations between five facets of impulsivity (negative urgency, positive urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking), borderline personality features, antisocial personality features, and two alcohol outcomes (consumption and alcohol-related problems) in a sample of college students (N=624; 69% female, 31% male) between the ages of 18–25 (M=19.77, SD=1.55). The model demonstrated good fit with χ2 (14, N=624)=17.48, p=.231; RMSEA=.020 [90% CI: .000–.046]; CFI=.998; SRMR=.019. Negative urgency and (lack of) perseverance predicted borderline personality features. Positive urgency, sensation seeking, (lack of) premeditation, and negative urgency predicted antisocial personality features. Antisocial, but not borderline personality features, were significantly associated with alcohol consumption. However, both antisocial and borderline personality features significantly predicted alcohol problems. Overall, the results demonstrate that impulsivity facets can differentially predict personality psychopathology and illustrate distinct paths to alcohol consumption and problems.

Personality Disorder Symptoms and Suicidality: Low Desire and High Plans for Suicide in Military Inpatients and Outpatients.

This study characterizes the personality disorder (PD) symptoms of patients who endorse a perplexing combination of low desire and high plans for suicide. Five PD (antisocial, narcissistic, borderline, dependent, avoidant) symptoms were examined at the junction of two suicide risk factors: (a) suicidal desire/ideation and (b) resolved plans/preparations. Participants (N = 250) were recruited from U.S. Army Medical Center affiliated sites, including two outpatient clinics, an inpatient facility, and an emergency room. Self-report measures of PD and suicide symptoms were administered. The interaction of desire and plans was entered into multiple regression equations predicting PD symptoms. Patients endorsing low desire and high plans for suicide reported significantly more antisocial and narcissistic symptoms and fewer borderline, avoidant, and dependent PD symptoms. These findings support the existence of patients who endorse suicide plans in the absence of strong suicidal desire and suggest that they display antisocial and narcissistic personality characteristics. Future directions and clinical implications are discussed.

The Relationship between Antisocial and Borderline Features and Aggression in Young Adult Men in Treatment for Substance Use Disorders

ABSTRACTThere is a large literature documenting that adult men in treatment for substance use disorders perpetrate more aggression than men without substance use disorders. Unfortunately, there is minimal research on aggression among young adult men (i.e., 18–25 years of age) in treatment for substance use. Moreover, although aggression is more likely to occur when individuals are acutely intoxicated by alcohol or drugs, research also suggests that antisocial (ASPD) and borderline (BPD) personality features increase the chances an individual will use aggression. The current study therefore examined the associations between ASPD and BPD features, including specific features that are reflective of impulsivity, and aggression in young adult men in treatment for substance use disorders (N = 79). Controlling for age, education, alcohol and drug use, ASPD features were positively associated with various indicators of aggression (e.g., physical, verbal, attitudinal), whereas BPD features were only associated with physical aggression. However, ASPD and BPD features that were specific to impulsivity were robustly related to indicators of aggression. Findings suggest that substance use treatment should attempt to target ASPD and BPD features in young adult men, which may help reduce aggression after treatment.

Chronic anger as a precursor to adult antisocial personality features: The moderating influence of cognitive control.

Anger is among the earliest occurring symptoms of mental health, yet we know little about its developmental course. Further, no studies have examined whether youth with persistent anger are at an increased risk of exhibiting antisocial personality features in adulthood, or how cognitive control abilities may protect these individuals from developing such maladaptive outcomes. Trajectories of anger were delineated among 503 boys using annual assessments from childhood to middle adolescence (ages ∼7-14). Associations between these trajectories and features of antisocial personality in young adulthood (age ∼28) were examined, including whether cognitive control moderates this association. Five trajectories of anger were identified (i.e., childhood-onset, childhood-limited, adolescent-onset, moderate, and low). Boys in the childhood-onset group exhibited the highest adulthood antisocial personality features (e.g., psychopathy, aggression, criminal charges). However, boys in this group were buffered from these problems if they had higher levels of cognitive control during adolescence. Findings were consistent across measures from multiple informants, replicated across distinct time periods, and remained when controlling for general intelligence and prior antisocial behavior. This is the first study to document the considerable heterogeneity in the developmental course of anger from childhood to adolescence. As hypothesized, good cognitive control abilities protected youth with persistent anger problems from developing antisocial personality features in adulthood. Clinical implications and future directions are discussed.

Supplemental Material for Chronic Anger as a Precursor to Adult Antisocial Personality Features: The Moderating Influence of Cognitive Control

Supplemental Material for Chronic Anger as a Precursor to Adult Antisocial Personality Features: The Moderating Influence of Cognitive Control

Impaired response inhibition in juvenile delinquents with antisocial personality characteristics: A preliminary ERP study in a Go/Nogo task

The present study explored the time course of response inhibition function in juvenile delinquents with antisocial personality characteristics (JDAP) by recording the event-related potentials in a Go/Nogo task. Compared to healthy participants, JDAP participants showed similar performance to controls for the Go trails, but worse performance for the Nogo trails. Both N2nogo and P3nogo components showed reduction of the amplitudes in JDAP participants, reflecting the early stage of associated with conflict monitoring and the late stage of inhibition processing, respectively. These data suggest that JDAP participants exhibited impaired response inhibition function.

How Other-Oriented Perfectionism Differs from Self-Oriented and Socially Prescribed Perfectionism: Further Findings

Investigating how other-oriented perfectionism (OOP) differed from self-oriented perfectionism (SOP) and socially prescribed perfectionism (SPP), Stoeber (Journal of Psychopathology and Behavioral Assessment, 36, 329–338, 2014a) found OOP to show unique positive relationships with the Dark Triad personality traits (narcissism, Machiavellianism, psychopathy) and unique negative relationships with nurturance, intimacy, and social development goals. Aiming to expand on Stoeber’s findings, the present study examined 229 university students investigating the unique relationships of the three forms of perfectionism with humor styles, callous-unemotional-uncaring traits, social value orientations, self- and other-interest, and positive self-evaluations (positive self-regard, feeling superior to others). When multiple regressions were conducted controlling for the overlap between the three forms of perfectionism, OOP showed unique positive relationships with aggressive humor, uncaring traits, an individualistic orientation, and positive self-regard and unique negative relationships with a prosocial orientation and other-interest. In contrast, SOP showed unique positive relationships with affiliative humor and other-interest and unique negative relationships with aggressive humor, callous-uncaring traits, and a competitive orientation whereas SPP showed unique positive relationships with self-depreciating humor and unemotional traits and unique negative relationships with both forms of positive self-evaluations. The findings provide further evidence that OOP is a “dark” form of perfectionism positively associated with narcissistic, antisocial, and uncaring personality characteristics.

Antisocial features and “faking bad”: A critical note

We critically review the literature on antisocial personality features and symptom fabrication (i.e., faking bad; e.g., malingering). A widespread assumption is that these constructs are intimately related. Some studies have, indeed, found that antisocial individuals score higher on instruments detecting faking bad, but others have been unable to replicate this pattern. In addition, studies exploring whether antisocial individuals are especially talented in faking bad have generally come up with null results. The notion of an intrinsic link between antisocial features and faking bad is difficult to test and research in this domain is sensitive to selection bias. We argue that research on faking bad would profit from further theoretical articulation. One topic that deserves scrutiny is how antisocial features affect the cognitive dissonance typically induced by faking bad. We illustrate our points with preliminary data and discuss their implications.

Anti-social personality characteristics and psychotic symptoms: Two pathways associated with offending in schizophrenia.

Several research groups have shown that people with schizophrenia who offend do not form a homogenous group. A three-group model claimed by Hodgins proposes distinguishing between people who start offending before the onset of psychosis (early starters), after psychosis onset but at age 34 years or under (late starters) and after psychosis onset but at age 35 years or older (late first offenders). This study aimed to test the hypotheses (1) that the personality of early starters and non-psychotic offenders would be similar, but different from either late-starter group; (2) that the late-starter groups would be more likely to have positive psychotic symptoms than non-criminal patients with schizophrenia; and (3) that symptom types would differentiate the psychotic groups. A retrospective file study was conducted on cases of 97 early starters, 100 late starters and 26 late first offenders all drawn from the Netherlands Institute of Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology (NIFP) archives 1993-2008, 115 non-psychotic offenders from 2005-2008 NIFP archives and 129 patients with schizophrenia and no criminal history from one general service in Rotterdam. Early starters closely resembled the non-psychotic offenders in their premorbid anti-social personality characteristics. The two late-onset offending psychosis groups were more likely to have persecutory and/or grandiose delusions than non-offenders with psychosis, but so were the early starters. In a first study to compare subgroups of offenders with psychosis directly with non-psychotic offenders and non-offenders with psychosis, we found such additional support for a distinction between early and late starters with psychosis that different treatment strategies would seem indicated, focusing on personality and substance misuse for the former but psychotic symptoms for all. It remains to be seen whether the higher rate of alcohol misuse amongst late first offenders is a fundamental distinction or a function of age difference.

Drop-out from a psychodynamic group psychotherapy outpatient unit

Background. Drop-out from psychotherapy is common and represents a considerable problem in clinical practice and research. Aim. To explore pre-treatment predictors of early and late drop-out from psychodynamic group therapy in a public outpatient unit for non-psychotic disorders in Denmark. Methods. Naturalistic design including 329 patients, the majority with mood, neurotic and personality disorders referred to 39-session group therapy. Predictors were socio-demographic and clinical variables, self-reported symptoms (Symptom Check List-90-Revised) and personality style (Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II). Drop-out was classified into early and late premature termination excluding patients who dropped out for external reasons. Results. Drop-out comprised 20.6% (68 patients) of the sample. Logistic regression revealed social functioning, vocational training, alcohol problems and antisocial behavior to be related to drop-out. However, early drop-outs had prominent agoraphobic symptoms, lower interpersonal sensitivity and compulsive personality features, and late drop-outs cognitive and somatic anxiety symptoms and antisocial personality features. Clinical and psychological variables accounted for the major part of variance in predictions of drop-out, which ranged from 15.6% to 19.5% (Nagelkerke Pseudo R-Square). Conclusion. Social functioning was consistently associated with drop-out, but personality characteristics and anxiety symptoms differentiated between early and late drop-out. Failure to discriminate between stages of premature termination may explain some of the inconsistencies in the drop-out literature. Clinical implications. Before selection of patients to time-limited psychodynamic groups, self-reported symptoms should be thoroughly considered. Patients with agoraphobic symptoms should be offered alternative treatment. Awareness of and motivation to work with interpersonal issues may be essential for compliance with group therapy.

A Longitudinal Study of Risk Factors for Repeated Sexual Coercion and Assault in U.S. College Men

The purpose of the current study was to understand the prevalence, severity, and predictors of repeated sexual coercion and assault (SCA) in a non-criminal sample. Participants were 795 college men who were surveyed at the end of each of their 4years in college. Participants completed self-report inventories once per year for 4years. Measures assessed demographics, adverse childhood experiences, offense characteristics, antisocial personality characteristics, attitudes towards women and forced sex, perceived social norms, sexual behavior, and substance use. Results indicated that, among the 238 participants who reported at least once incident of SCA, 68% engaged in repeated SCA, with repeat offenders engaging in aggressive acts of higher severity that began at an earlier age. A multinomial logistic regression model compared single and repeat offenders to non-perpetrators. Both single and repeat offenders endorsed more risky behaviors and sexually aggressive beliefs than non-perpetrators. Single offenders were higher on childhood adversity than non-perpetrators and repeat offenders were higher on antisocial personality traits than non-perpetrators. A second multivariate model compared single offenders to repeat offenders. Repeat offenders scored higher than single offenders on risky behaviors, sexually aggressive beliefs, and antisocial traits. Findings highlight the high prevalence of repeated SCA in young adults, the need for interventions that decrease rape supportive attitudes and risky substance use, and the importance of expanding models of sexual recidivism to include multiple risk factors.

An Examination of the Factors Related to Dating Violence Perpetration Among Young Men and Women and Associated Theoretical Explanations

This article provides a review of the literature on dating violence (DV) perpetration, specifically sex similarities and differences in the correlates and predictors of DV perpetration and the utility of current theories to explain young men’s and women’s DV perpetration. Overall, many of the correlates and predictors of DV perpetration are similar among young men and women (e.g., witnessing interparental violence, experiencing child abuse, alcohol abuse, traditional gender roles, relationship power dynamics). However, young women’s perpetration of DV is more strongly related to internalizing symptoms (e.g., depression), trait anger and hostility, and experiencing DV victimization than young men’s perpetration, whereas young men’s perpetration of DV is more consistently related to lower socioeconomic status and educational attainment, antisocial personality characteristics, and increased relationship length than young women’s perpetration. Each theory offers insights into but does not fully account for the correlates and predictors of DV perpetration. Sociocultural theories may be useful in explaining the use of coercive control in relationships, and learning/intergenerational transmission of violence theories may be useful in explaining bidirectional couple violence. Future research should focus on integrative theories, such as in the social–ecological theory, in order to explain various forms of DV. Our understanding of young men’s and young women’s DV perpetration is limited by cross-sectional research designs, methodological inconsistencies, a lack of sex-specific analytic approaches, and a lack of focus on contextual factors; more multivariate and longitudinal studies are needed. Further, as DV prevention programming is often presented in mixed-sex formats, a critical understanding of sex differences and similarities in DV perpetration could ultimately refine and improve effectiveness of programming efforts aimed at reducing DV.

How Other-Oriented Perfectionism Differs from Self-Oriented and Socially Prescribed Perfectionism

Over the past 20 years we have gained a comprehensive understanding of self-oriented and socially prescribed perfectionism, but our understanding of other-oriented perfectionism (OOP)—and how it differs from the other two forms of perfectionism—is still underdeveloped. Two studies with university students are presented examining OOP’s relationships with social goals, the dark triad, the HEXACO personality dimensions, and altruism. OOP showed unique positive relationships with narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy and unique negative relationships with nurturance, intimacy, and social development goals. Furthermore it showed unique relationships with social dominance goals (positive) and emotionality, agreeableness, and altruism (negative) dependent on the OOP measure used. The findings suggest that OOP is a “dark” form of perfectionism associated with antisocial and narcissistic personality characteristics.

First Offenders With Psychosis

Within the early/late start typology of offenders with schizophrenia, a third type, first offenders (FO), has been proposed. The aim of this study was to examine the justification of this first offender type. Retrospective file study consisted of 97 early starters (ES), 100 late starters, and 26 FO. Variables in different domains were scored. There were significant differences between the groups within the domains life functioning, abuse and family-related problems, psychiatric functioning, substance misuse, antisocial personality, and offense characteristics. Most differences were between the ES and FO. The existence of the first offender type is justified by the present findings. These findings underscore the importance of offender subtyping for better offender treatment interventions.

Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy)

Bad Boys, Bad Men: Confronting Antisocial Personality Disorder (Sociopathy)

Four Factors of Impulsivity Differentiate Antisocial and Borderline Personality Disorders

Impulsivity is a shared criterion for the diagnosis of antisocial and borderline personality disorders, and this link may account for the high comorbidity rates between the two disorders. The current study aimed to differentiate between borderline and antisocial personality disorders using the four factors of impulsivity identified by Whiteside and Lynam (2001). Five hundred thirty-six undergraduate participants completed the personality assessment inventory (PAI; Morey, 1991) to assess borderline and antisocial personality features and the NEO personality inventory, third edition (NEO-PI-3; McCrae & Costa, 2010) to assess the four factors of impulsivity. Results indicate that negative urgency and lack of perseverance were significantly and uniquely related to borderline features, while sensation seeking and lack of premeditation were significantly and uniquely related to antisocial features. The implications of these results for improved differential diagnosis are discussed.

Conservatives Can Relax: A(n Ethical) Reanalysis of “Bad News”

A recent article in Neuroethics posited “bad news for conservatives,” on the basis of survey data collected on line. On the basis of bivariate correlations between self-reported conservatism/liberalism and a variety of moral propositions, the author inferred that those moral judgments were ‘conservative’ or ‘liberal.’ Then, based on a series of bivariate correlations between those same moral propositions and measures of “morally worrisome” personality characteristics, the author concluded that conservatives tended to have these morally worrisome characteristics. Unfortunately, the original article was replete with methodological and statistical errors. This paper presents a reanalysis of the data from the original article, using good statistical and methodological technique. The reanalysis suggests that there are some small but potentially theoretically meaningful relationships between some moral propositions and three morally worrisome (antisocial) personality characteristics. The data also suggest that these relationships can change substantially depending on other conditions, so should not yet be generalized.

The Moderating effects of Cluster B Personality Traits on Violence Reduction Training

Cognitive behavioral therapies have positive effects on anger and aggression; however, individuals differ in their response to treatment. The authors previously found that dynamic factors, such as increases in readiness to change, are associated with enhanced outcomes for violence reduction training. This study investigated how less dynamic factors, specifically Cluster B personality traits, moderate the effects of violence reduction training. The authors used mixed modeling to fit growth curves to 14 weeks of anger strategies data and evaluated whether the presence of Cluster B traits affected pretreatment anger levels and rates of change. As expected, overall levels of negative anger strategies decreased across the 14-week treatment. Participants with antisocial, borderline, and histrionic personality features reported higher rates of negative anger strategies, whereas those with narcissistic personality features reported fewer negative anger strategies. Those with antisocial personality features improved at a rate similar to the overall trend of those without Cluster B traits. Those with borderline and histrionic features improved at an accelerated rate.

Correlates of intimate partner psychological aggression perpetration in a clinical sample of alcoholic men.

This study longitudinally examined correlates of intimate partner psychological aggression in a sample of 178 men seeking treatment for alcoholism and their partners, building on a previous investigation examining correlates of intimate partner physical aggression (Taft et al., 2010). The men were largely Caucasian; average age was 41.0 years. Participants completed a battery of questionnaires that assessed distal and proximal predictors of psychological aggression perpetration. Distal factors, assessed at baseline, included initial alcohol problem severity, beliefs about alcohol, and antisocial personality characteristics. Proximal factors, assessed at baseline and at follow-ups 6 and 12 months later, included alcohol and drug use, relationship adjustment, and anger. Psychological aggression was assessed at all three time points. Findings showed that both groups of variables were associated with psychological aggression perpetration. Beliefs that drinking causes relationship problems and variables related to alcohol consumption exhibited the strongest associations with psychological aggression. The findings are consistent with theoretical models that emphasize both distal and proximal effects of drinking on intimate partner aggression. Implications for clinical interventions and directions for future research are discussed.

Childhood maltreatment and prospectively observed quality of early care as predictors of antisocial personality disorder features

Few studies have evaluated the separate contributions of maltreatment and ongoing quality of parent-child interaction to the etiology of antisocial personality features using a prospective longitudinal design. 120 low-income young adults (aged 18-23) were assessed for extent of ASPD features on the Structured Clinical Interview for Diagnosis-Axis II, for presence of maltreatment on the Conflict Tactics Scale, Traumatic Experiences Scale, and Adult Attachment Interview, and for referral in infancy to parent-infant clinical services. Fifty-six of these families had been studied longitudinally since the first year of life. In infancy, attachment disorganization and disrupted mother-infant interaction were assessed; in middle childhood, disorganized-controlling attachment behaviors were reliably rated. In kindergarten and second grade, behavior problems were assessed by teacher report. In cross-sectional analyses, maltreatment was significantly associated with ASPD features but did not account for the independent effect of early referral to parent-infant services on ASPD features. In longitudinal analyses, maternal withdrawal in infancy predicted the extent of ASPD features twenty years later, independently of childhood abuse. In middle childhood, disorganized attachment behavior and maladaptive behavior at school added to prediction of later ASPD features. Antisocial features in young adulthood have precursors in the minute-to-minute process of parent-child interaction beginning in infancy.