Psychopathic Personality Traits and Their Influence on Parenting Quality: Results from a Nationally Representative Sample of Americans

Kevin M. Beaver, Christian da Silva Costa, Ana Paula Poersch, Micheli Cristina Freddi, Mônica Celis Stelmach, Eric J. Connolly, Joseph A. Schwartz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

29 Scopus citations

Abstract

Psychopathic personality traits have consistently been found to predict a range of negative and dysfunctional outcomes. As a result, it is somewhat surprising that the research to date has failed to empirically examine the potential association between psychopathic personality traits and parenting quality. The current study addressed this omission in the literature by analyzing a community sample of adults. The results revealed that respondents scoring higher on psychopathic personality traits tended to report more negative parenting quality. These results were detected for both males and females and remained significant even after controlling for the effects of parental transmission and child-effects. To our knowledge, this is the first study to show a statistically significant association between psychopathic personality traits and parenting quality. We conclude with a discussion of what these findings mean for psychopathy research and the parenting the literature.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)497-511
Number of pages15
JournalPsychiatric Quarterly
Volume85
Issue number4
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2014

All Science Journal Classification (ASJC) codes

  • Psychiatry and Mental health

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