The Relation Between the Two Factors of Psychopathy and Intimate Partner Aggression

ABSTRACT

Psychopathy is a personality disorder that has emerged as a correlate of antisocial, impulsive, and violent behavior, including intimate partner violence (IPV). In the current study, we sought to explore the complex relationship between two factors of psychopathy and IPV perpetration. The Fearlessness-Dominance Factor I (PPI-I) assesses the affective-interpersonal traits of psychopathy, whereas the Impulsive-Antisociality Factor II (PPI-II) assesses the behavioral-lifestyle traits of psychopathy. Data from 114 couples was utilized in the current study. When using male self-report of IPV, all forms of violence were significantly correlated with PPI-I. No male self-report or female-report of any of the forms of violence were significantly correlated with PPI-II. Hierarchical regression was utilized to study the impact of psychopathy factors in predicting physical violence while controlling for demographic variables. In predicting women’s report of men’s violence, the addition of psychopathy factors to the model explained significantly more of the variance (F = 2.71; p < .05) above and beyond demographic variables. The addition of psychopathy factors to the model predicting men’s self-reported physical violence was also significant (F = 4.78, p < .001). These results suggest that individuals high in PPI-I may be at higher risk of IPV perpetration compared to those high in PPI-II.

KEYWORDS:

• Intimate partner violence
• PPI-I
• PPI-II
• psychopathy

Disclosure of interest

The authors, Susan Iyican and Julia C. Babcock, declare that they have no conflicts to report.

Ethical standards and informed consent

All procedures followed were in accordance with the ethical standards of the responsible committee on human experimentation at the University of Houston and with the Helsinki Declaration of 1975, as revised in 2000. Informed consent was obtained from all patients for being included in the study.

Funding

This project was funded by Grant R03 MH066943-01A1 from the National Institutes of Health and by the University of Houston.

Additional information

Funding

This project was funded by Grant R03 MH066943-01A1 from the National Institutes of Health and by the University of Houston.