The Neuropsychological Underpinnings to Psychopathic Personality Traits in a Nationally Representative and Longitudinal Sample

Although psychopathy is a major area of research in psychology and criminology, much remains unknown about its etiological underpinnings. Drawing on data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health, the current study explored the association between neuropsychological deficits and psychopathic personality traits and produced three key findings. First, four neuropsychological deficits measures were consistently related to the measure of psychopathic personality traits both longitudinally and cross-sectionally. Second, neuropsychological deficits measures predicted variation in psychopathic personality traits for both males and females and the magnitude of the association between neuropsychological deficits and psychopathic personality traits did not vary as a function of gender. Third, parental socialization measures had relatively small and inconsistent effects on psychopathic personality traits. Suggestions for future research are offered.