David S DeMatteo

This study examined the construct of psychopathy in a sample of 54 participants recruited from the general community population of the greater Philadelphia metropolitan area using an empirically-validated and widely-accepted measure of psychopathy-the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R). This study compared the data obtained from the present sample to the PCL-R normative data, which provided a direct comparison between institutionalized and noninstitutionalized individuals with elevated levels of psychopathic characteristics. This study also examined the role of specified protective factors among the participants with elevated levels of psychopathic characteristics, including their relationship to PCL-R scores and three measures of antisocial behavior. Another purpose of this study was to evaluate the utility and effectiveness of the methodology for locating, recruiting, and studying individuals from a noninstitutionalized population with elevated levels of psychopathic characteristics. The results indicated that the methodology effectively located individuals from the general community population with moderately elevated levels of psychopathic characteristics. The results indicated that the participants in the High Psychopathic Group exhibited the core personality features of psychopathy, but not the core behavioral features of psychopathy. A comparison between the present data and the PCL-R normative data revealed that the present sample differed significantly from the correctional samples included in the PCL-R normative studies. The results indicated that there is a demonstrable relationship between PCL-R scores and the number of protective factors for the participants in the High Psychopathic Group. When using a conservative approach to measure the presence of protective factors, there was a significant negative correlation between the number of protective factors and PCL-R scores for the participants in the High Psychopathic Group. The results indicated that there was no statistically significant relationship between the number of protective factors and three measures of antisocial behavior (i.e., number of arrests, number of MacArthur arrests, and number of sub-arrest MacArthur offenses) for the participants in the High Psychopathic Group. Finally, the results indicated that the number of protective factors and the severity of current substance abuse were not significant predictors of the three measures of antisocial behavior for the participants in the High Psychopathic Group.