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Does gender moderate the association between psychopathic personality traits and externalizing behaviors? A
Montana L Ploe1, David K Marcus1, Keira L Monaghan1
1Department of Psychology, Washington State University.
Abstract:
Psychopathy is characterized by antagonistic characteristics that often disrupt normative functioning and are a strong predictor of antisocial outcomes. However, it is unclear whether psychopathic traits are similarly predictive of externalizing correlates in both men and women. Two sets of meta-analyses examined whether gender moderates the relation between psychopathic traits and externalizing behaviors. A total of 83 references (k = 88 reports) were included in the first set of meta-analyses examining within-study differences between men and women in studies using Psychopathy Checklist-related and triarchic measures of psychopathy. A total of 115 references (k = 227 reports) were included in the second set of meta-analyses examining the associations between Psychopathy Checklist-related measures and legal outcomes associated with externalizing. Of 42 comparisons, only two yielded significant differences between men and women, and these differences were small and could be attributed to Type I error. In general, psychopathic traits are as strongly associated with various externalizing behaviors in female samples as they are in male samples, regardless of the type of psychopathy measure used. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).
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