Citation

Derefinko KJ, Lynam DR. J. Personal. Disord. 2007; 21(6): 638-656.

Affiliation

Department of Psychology, University of Kentucky, Lexington, KY 40506-0044, USA. kjdere2@uky.edu

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007, Guilford Publications)

DOI

10.1521/pedi.2007.21.6.638

PMID

18072865

Abstract

The present study examined whether psychopathy can be understood as a constellation of traits from the Five Factor Model (FFM) of personality. Using a prototype matching approach, we examined the ability of the Revised NEO Personality Inventory (NEO PI-R; Costa & McCrae, 1992) to represent psychopathy in a sample of 297 male and female known crack cocaine abusers. Importantly, we examined the convergence and divergence between FFM psychopathy and other personality disorders assessed using the FFM. FFM psychopathy was correlated with self-reports of antisocial behavior, drug use, risky sex, and externalizing and internalizing disorder symptoms. As expected, there was overlap in the relations between psychopathy and several Cluster B personality disorders, but there were also important points of divergence. These results further extend the nomological network of FFM psychopathy and provide additional support for considering psychopathy a constellation of personality traits from a general model.

Language: en