Unfeeling or Uncontrolled? PCL-R Subfactor-Specific Anomalies in Psychological Processing During Criminal Behavior

Area of Science:

• Forensic Psychology
• Criminology
• Clinical Psychology

Background:

• Psychopathy is associated with emotional deficits and poor self-regulation.
• Previous research often lacks real-life behavioral data.
• The bifactorial nature of psychopathy requires further investigation in criminal contexts.

Purpose of the Study:

• To examine affective and regulatory processes during criminal behavior in male German prison inmates.
• To investigate the differential associations of psychopathy factors with these processes.
• To explore the real-life behavioral manifestations of psychopathy.

Main Methods:

• Theory-based content analysis of offense descriptions from criminal verdicts.
• Coding of affective and regulatory processes displayed during criminal norm-violations.
• Utilizing scores from the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R), divided into interpersonal-affective (F1) and lifestyle-antisocial (F2) factors.

Main Results:

• Factor 1 (F1) of psychopathy correlated with positive activation affect during criminal acts.
• Factor 2 (F2) of psychopathy correlated with impulsive reactivity during criminal acts.
• No significant association was found between psychopathy factors and angry emotionality.

Conclusions:

• The two-factor structure of psychopathy is reflected in psychological processing during real-life criminal behavior.
• Findings suggest distinct criminogenic processes associated with different facets of psychopathy.
• Real-life behavioral data analysis provides valuable insights into psychopathy's manifestation.