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Original Articles
Introduction
Psychopathy is characterized by distinctive emotional and interpersonal features (including lack of empathy/remorse, shallow emotions, conning/deceptiveness, grandiosity and glibness), often in the context of chronic antisocial behavior marked by deficient impulse control. There is currently considerable debate regarding the boundaries and nomological network surrounding the psychopathy construct, including the status of deficient anxiety or fear as core elements versus peripheral concomitants (Skeem et al. 2011; Lilienfeld et al. 2012; Miller & Lynam, 2012; Marcus et al. 2013; Patrick et al. 2013). The triarchic model of psychopathy proposed by Patrick et al. (2009) represents an attempt to reconcile alternative approaches to conceptualizing the disorder, which have varied historically in the degree to which maladaptive criminogenic features (e.g. callousness, aggression, cruelty) have been emphasized relative to features entailing low anxiousness and social efficacy. The triarchic model proposes that alternative conceptions differ in the relative emphasis placed on three distinguishable phenotypic facets: disinhibition (deficient impulse control and dysregulated negative affect), meanness (deliberate cruelty and aggressive exploitation of others) and boldness (relative fearlessness, resilience to stress, and social dominance).
The central aim of the current study was to examine how the phenotypic facets of the triarchic model are represented in symptomatic components of the most commonly used clinical assessment instrument for psychopathy, the Psychopathy Checklist - Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003). A secondary aim was to evaluate the hypothesis that high levels of boldness would distinguish psychopathy from the more prevalent diagnosis of antisocial personality disorder (ASPD), as a basis for clarifying conceptual boundaries between these two related diagnoses.
Triarchic model of psychopathy
Historically, conceptions of psychopathy have varied with regard to the relative emphasis placed on cruel, aggressive and criminally deviant behavior versus tendencies toward low trait fear/anxiousness and interpersonal dominance. The triarchic model (Patrick et al. 2009) was developed to reconcile alternative historic perspectives by characterizing psychopathy in terms of three distinct but intersecting dispositional constructs: disinhibition, meanness and boldness (see Skeem et al. 2011 for a review). Disinhibition refers to general proneness toward impulse control problems, including deficient behavioral monitoring and restraint, impatient urgency, a failure to plan for the future, low frustration tolerance, angry/reactive aggression, poor regulation of affect and susceptibility to substance use problems. Meanness...