Examining the association between childhood cognitive ability and psychopathic traits at age 48

Journal article


Kavish, Nick, Bergstrom, H., Narvey, Chelsey, Piquero, Alex R., Farrington, David P. and Boutwell, Brian B. 2020. Examining the association between childhood cognitive ability and psychopathic traits at age 48. Personality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment. https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000403
AuthorsKavish, Nick, Bergstrom, H., Narvey, Chelsey, Piquero, Alex R., Farrington, David P. and Boutwell, Brian B.
Abstract

Despite early theorists suggesting that psychopathic traits are associated with higher intelligence, meta-analytic work has found that global psychopathy scores are actually negatively related to intelligence, albeit weakly. Furthermore, it was reported in the same meta-analytic work that the various dimensions of psychopathy were differentially related to intelligence. Importantly, virtually all of the research to date has relied on cross-sectional associations. The current study examined whether intelligence scores (verbal comprehension, non-verbal IQ, and a global intelligence composite) at age 8 were associated with psychopathy scores at age 48 in a sample of white, urban males from London (analytical n = 292). Results suggested a significant, but weak, inverse association between intelligence and the affective, lifestyle, and antisocial facets of psychopathy and a nonsignificant association with the interpersonal facet, as assessed by the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version. These findings contribute to the growing body of evidence suggesting that psychopathy, as conceptualized in most modern models, is either very weakly inversely related to, or simply not a correlate of intelligence.

Keywordsverbal intelligence; non-verbal intelligence; psychopathic traits; psychopathy; Cambridge study in delinquent development
Year2020
JournalPersonality Disorders: Theory, Research, and Treatment
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association
ISSN1949-2715
1949-2723
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)https://doi.org/10.1037/per0000403
Web address (URL)http://hdl.handle.net/10545/624709
hdl:10545/624709
Publication dates01 Mar 2020
Publication process dates
Deposited17 Apr 2020, 09:04
Accepted25 Feb 2020
Rights

© 2020, American Psychological Association. This paper is not the copy of record and may not exactly replicate the final, authoritative version of the article. Please do not copy or cite without authors' permission. The final article will be available, upon publication, via its DOI: 10.1037/per0000403

ContributorsSam Houston University, University of Derby, The University of Texas at Dallas, The University of Texas at Dallas, University of Cambridge and University of Mississippi
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