Examining gender as moderating the association between psychopathy and substance abuse

ABSTRACT

Previous research has shown a significant association between psychopathy and substance abuse. To date, these associations have not been compared between men and women in forensic or correctional samples, an important topic in light of some empirical findings indicating that psychopathy manifests differently across gender in other contexts. The current study was designed to address this gap in the literature using archival data sets consisting of four large samples derived from forensic, correctional, and university settings, with different measures for psychopathy, alcohol, and substance use. As expected, psychopathy (particularly traits reflective of disinhibition/social deviance) was significantly and moderately correlated with alcohol and substance abuse in all four samples; however, with one minor exception, hierarchical regression analyses revealed no significant moderating effects of gender on these associations. These findings indicate that, although psychopathy may be manifested differently across gender in some ways, substance abuse is likely not one of them.

KEYWORDS:

• Psychopathy
• alcohol abuse
• substance abuse
• gender

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank Kathleen Stafford, Diane Gartland, the Michigan Department of Correction, and the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction for facilitating various data collections.

Disclosure statement

Yossef Ben-Porath serves as a paid consultant to the MMPI Publisher, the University of Minnesota, and Distributor, Pearson. As co-author of the MMPI-2-RF he receives royalties on MMPI-2-RF sales.

Notes

1. We used the aggregate rather than individual variables to make the data more presentable given the use of several samples. Analyses with individual variables yielded very similar results to the aggregate variable and no overall conclusions would have changed. These analyses are available from the first author upon request.

2. Indeed, an examination of the PPI subscales indicates that Coldheartedness was substantially higher in men relative to women (t = 8.76, p < .001; Cohen's d = 0.74).

Additional information

Funding

Several grants from the University of Minnesota Press, publisher of the MMPI-2 and MMPI-2-RF, supported these data collections.