Not just ‘callous-unemotional’: Psychopathic traits are associated with emotion dysregulation dimensions

Abstract

Introduction

Historically, psychopathic individuals have mainly been described as characterized by pervasive callous-unemotional traits, with dramatic implications for clinical and forensic practices – such as the tendency to deem psychopathic individuals as untreatable. However, recent evidence with community samples have highlighted that psychopathic traits may be in fact related to emotion dysregulation rather than being the mere reflection of an underlying ‘unemotionality’. Yet, it is no clear if this association extends to populations with more severe forms of psychopathy (i.e., offenders).

Objectives

We wanted to replicate previous evidence of an association between emotion dysregulation and psychopathic traits in a sample of incarcerated offenders.

Aims

To investigate the associations among emotion dysregulation dimensions and psychopathic traits, exploring similarities and differences between the Interpersonal-Affective and the Antisocial-Lifestyle facets of psychopathy.

Methods

A sample of male offenders incarcerated in Italian jails completed the Self-Report Psychopathy Scale (SRP-4; Paulhus, Neumann, & Hare, 2015) and the Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale (DERS; Gratz & Roemer, 2004).

Results

In line with the expectations, emotion dysregulation dimensions did predict higher levels of psychopathic traits. Structural Equation Modelling revealed that selected dimensions of emotion dysregulation were associated with different facets of psychopathy.

Conclusions

Based on our findings, we argue that psychopathic traits may be associated to a certain extent with emotion dysregulation, and thus a focus on improving emotion regulation skills may hold the promise to dampen the therapeutic pessimism when dealing with psychopathic offenders.

Disclosure of interest

The authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.