The Relationship Between Emotion Regulation Difficulties and Psychopathic Personality Characteristics

The factors of psychopathy assessment tools diverge in their relationships with numerous problematic behaviors and psychological disorders. Emotion dysregulation is a pathological process argued to cut across diagnoses, and may be important in better understanding these divergent associations. This study sought to clarify psychopathy's association with emotion regulation difficulties. It was predicted that the Fearless Dominance and Self-Centered Impulsivity factors of the Psychopathic Personality Inventory-Revised would demonstrate differential relationships with a multidimensional conceptualization of emotion regulation difficulties. Ninety-one male undergraduate students and 28 male court-mandated anger management participants completed self-report questionnaires measuring emotion regulation difficulties and psychopathic personality characteristics. Hierarchical regression analyses indicated that emotion regulation difficulties were negatively associated with Fearless Dominance psychopathic traits, but positively associated with Self-Centered Impulsivity and global psychopathic traits. In addition, emotion regulation difficulties explained incremental variance in psychopathic traits over and above negative affect alone. These findings may have clinical implications for the etiology and treatment of psychopathic personality disorder.