Is Juvenile Psychopathy Associated With Low Anxiety

Is juvenile psychopathy associated with low anxiety

and fear in conduct-disordered male offenders?

Mairead C. Dolan a,b,*, Charlotte E. Rennie a,b

aDepartment of Psychiatry, University of Manchester, UKbBolton, Salford and Trafford Mental Health Trust, Edenfield Centre, Bury New Road,

Prestwich, Manchester M25 3BL, UK

Received 20 March 2006; received in revised form 30 October 2006; accepted 6 November 2006

Abstract

Although the traditional conceptualization of psychopathy suggests that this construct is negatively

associated with anxiety the literature has produced mixed findings. The present study examined the

relationship between self-report measures of anxiety/fear and psychopathy assessed using the Psychopathy

Checklist: Youth Version in 110 adolescent male offenders with conduct disorder. In line with the literature

in children, we found that measures of anxiety and fearfulness exhibited differential associations with

different elements of psychopathy. Specifically, we found that trait anxiety was negatively correlated with

the affective components of the psychopathy construct and that fearfulness was negatively correlated with

the more antisocial components of the construct. The findings are discussed in the context of growing

literature on psychopathy assessment in younger cohorts.

# 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Anxiety; Adolescence; Psychopathy; Conduct disorder

1. Introduction

The antisocial personality disorders (conduct disorder, antisocial personality disorder, and

psychopathy) are a group of overlapping disorders of personality that are associated with

significant intra and interpersonal dysfunction across the lifespan. There is increasing recognition

that these disorders are complex constructs and comprise a constellation of symptoms and

behaviors (Blackburn, 1998; Frick, 1998; Hare, 1998). The last decade has seen a growing

Journal of Anxiety Disorders 21 (2007) 10281038

* Corresponding author at: Bolton, Salford and Trafford Mental Health Trust, Edenfield Centre, Bury New Road,

Prestwich, Manchester M25 3BL, UK. Tel.: +44 161 772 3855; fax: +44 161 772 3585.

E-mail address: [email protected] (M.C. Dolan).

0887-6185/$ see front matter # 2007 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.doi:10.1016/j.janxdis.2006.11.008

interest in the assessment of psychopathy in children and adolescents and a number of reviews

have highlighted the need to demonstrate that psychopathy is a stable construct with similar

external correlates across the lifespan (Dolan, 2004; Edens, Skeem, Cruise, & Cauffman, 2001;

Farrington, 2005).

There has been longstanding debate in the literature concerning the nature of the association

between antisocial behavior in these disorders and fear and anxiety, particularly in relation to the

psychopathy construct. Several theories have focused on the low fear hypothesis of antisocial

behavior (Cloninger, 1987, 1994; Gray, 1982; Lykken, 1957) or the absence of anxiety (Cleckley,

1976). However, several researchers have noted that antisocial personality disorders can be

associated with relatively high levels of negative affect including anxiety as a secondary

consequence of their antisocial behavior (Blackburn, 1998; Fowles, 1988; Frick, 1998;

Lilienfeld, 1992, 1994). It has been suggested that there are subgroups of antisocial individuals

with varying degrees of anxiety and neuroticism. Those with low levels of anxiety are described

as primary psychopaths (Blackburn, 1998) or undersocialized delinquents (Quay, 1987). Those

with high levels of anxiety are described as secondary psychopaths (Blackburn, 1998) or neurotic

delinquents (Quay, 1987). Some support for this distinction comes from studies showing that low

anxious psychopaths have deficits on passive avoidance learning tasks compared to high anxious

psychopaths (Newman, Widom, & Nathan, 1985).

Cleckleys (1941, 1976) original conceptualization of psychopathy emphasized deficient

emotional processes, including impoverished emotional reactions, lack of anxiety, and a

disjunction between the lexical and experiential components of emotion as key components of

the disorder. Several studies provide evidence of attenuation of physiological responses to

emotional information processing in psychopathic subjects with marked callous-unemotional

traits (Patrick, 1994). In addition, there is evidence of discordance between linguistic and

experiential components of emotion in both fear imaging (Patrick, Cuthbert, & Lang, 1994) and

memory paradigms (Christianson et al., 1996). The behavior and physiological anomalies

associated with psychopathy are thought to arise because the psychological processes that would

normally function to motivate adaptive behavior and emotional responding, in response to cues

for punishment, do not occur. Thus subjects who are characterized as having low anxiety and an

inability to empathize with others may have significant difficulties learning from the previous

adverse consequences of their behavior either on themselves or their victims. Low anxiety may

also be associated with a degree of fearlessness that results in repeated engagement in antisocial

activities and a failure to learn from experience.

In recent years there have also been attempts to distinguish between anxiety and fear

constructs, with fearfulness seen as a sensitivity to cues of impending danger (Gray, 1982;

Tellegen, 1982) while trait anxiety is viewed as the distress that results from the feeling that

negative consequences are inevitable (Tellegen, 1982). Although anxiety and fear are

overlapping constructs they do appear to have distinct neural underpinnings (Dien, 1999).

Early empirical studies testing the hypothesis that psychopathy is associated with a reduced

capacity for fear/anxiety has produced inconsistent findings. While Lykken (1957) reported that

primary psychopaths had lower fear, but not anxiety scores compared with non-criminal

comparisons, others (Schmauk, 1970; Widom, 1976) have not been able to replicate this finding.

More recent studies assessing psychopathy using the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R)

devised by Hare (1991) have focused on the relationship between anxiety and fear and the two-

factor model of psychopathy outlined by Harpur, Hare, and Hakstian (1989) in which Factor 1

reflects affective and interpersonal traits and Factor 2 consists of the social deviance/behavioral

items. To address the issue that these factors may have a differential relationship with anxiety/

M.C. Dolan, C.E. Rennie / Journal of Anxiety Disorders 21 (2007) 10281038 1029

fear, a number of studies have looked at the unique relationships with each factor by controlling

for the influence of the other factor. Thus, Patrick (1994) found that self-report measures of

emotional distress and fear were negatively related to PCL-R Factor 1 scores after controlling for

PCL-R Factor 2 and positively correlated with Factor 2 after controlling for Factor 1. This finding

was not replicated by Schmitt and Newman (1999) where controlling for Factor 2 did not affect

correlations between fear and anxiety and PCL-R total scores.

Hale, Goldstein, Abramowitz, Calamari, and Kosson (2004) examined the relationship

between three measures of anxiety and psychopathy (assessed using the PCL-R) in a sample of

incarcerated adult males. The anxiety measures included the Anxiety Sensitivity Index (ASI;

Reiss, Peterson, Gursky, & McNally, 1986), the State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI;

Speilberger, 1983) and the Welsh Anxiety Scale (WAS; Welsh, 1956). In line with previous

studies (Barry et al., 2000; Frick, 1998; Patrick, 1994) they examined relationships between

anxiety measures and specific dimensions of the PCL-R after controlling for the other factor.

They found that neither overall psychopathy score nor the affective/interpersonal aspects of these

disorders were significantly associated with abnormally low anxiety sensitivity or trait anxiety.

Overall, the empirical evidence for an inverse relationship between psychopathy and self-

reported anxiety in adults is mixed and inconsistent. In child and adolescent literature the findings

are also unclear. Several reviews suggest that rates of anxiety disorders are higher in clinic-

referred and institutionalized conduct-disordered samples than community samples of children

(Russo & Beidel, 1993; Zoccolillo, 1992) and adolescents (Krueger et al., 1994). There have also

been reports of positive correlations between anxiety and measures of externalizing behavior on

childhood rating scales (Fergusson & Horwood, 1993). There are a limited number of studies

assessing psychopathy and its relationship to anxiety/fear in younger cohorts and the findings are

mixed. Thus Brandt, Kennedy, Patrick, and Curtin (1997) reported no significant correlations

between measures of negative affect or anxiety and modified PCL-R ratings for adolescents.

However, the latter study did not examine differential relationships with the two psychopathy

factors. Frick, Lilienfeld, Ellis, Loney, and Silverthorn (1999) studied the relationship between

anxiety and psychopathy dimensions measured by the Psychopathy Screening Device (now the

Antisocial Process Screening Device, APSD; Frick, 1998) in a sample of 143 clinically referred

children with conduct problems. They found that measures of trait anxiety and fearlessness did

not correlate with each other but trait anxiety correlated positively, but not significantly, with

conduct problems after controlling for callous-unemotional traits. Callous-unemotional traits

tended to be negatively correlated with trait anxiety when conduct problems were controlled for.

By contrast, they found that correlations between fearlessness and psychopathy factor scores

were less striking, but fearlessness was correlated with callous-unemotional traits after

controlling for conduct problems, while fearlessness was negatively correlated with the two

conduct problem measures.

A recent study in adolescent males (Kosson, Cyterski, Steuerwald, Neumann, & Walker-

Matthews, 2002) reported that Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV; Forth, Kosson,

& Hare, 2003) score was positively correlated with the Welsh Anxiety Scale; a measure of

neuroticism or negative affect leading them to speculate that juvenile psychopaths may have not

yet developed the same mask of sanity that is seen in adults.

Inconsistencies in this literature in this field may be due to a combination of factors including

inconsistency in the anxiety/fear assessments, variable reliability of psychopathy measures

across the lifespan and, heterogeneity in the characteristics of the samples studied. For example

many previous studies of anxiety in conduct-disordered youth included mixed gender samples

and few have screened for psychopathology including anxiety/depressive disorders.

M.C. Dolan, C.E. Rennie / Journal of Anxiety Disorders 21 (2007) 102810381030

In this study we attempted to address these methodological limitations by restricting our

sample to male conduct-disordered youths who had been screened for co-morbid

psychopathology in light of reports that high levels of anxiety have been reported in antisocial

young people. We also examined the relationship between anxiety/fear and psychopathy in

adolescents using a measure of juvenile psychopathy (PCL: YV) that has now been validated in a

number of international settings and has been shown to have similar external correlates to the

adult construct (Forth et al., 2003). On the basis of previous research, we predicted that measures

of anxiety and fearlessness would exhibit differential associations with different elements of

psychopathy. Specifically, based on traditional theories, we hypothesized that trait anxiety would

be negatively correlated with the affective components of the psychopathy construct and that

fearfulness would be negatively correlated with the more antisocial components of the construct.

In line with previous studies (Frick et al., 1999; Hale et al., 2004; Patrick, 1994) we examined the

unique associations between anxiety/fear and each psychopathy dimension.

2. Method

2.1. Participants

Participants were drawn from a larger sample of 115 male adolescent incarcerated offenders

who were recruited from Young Offender Institutions and Secure Care establishments in the

North West Region of England (Dolan & Rennie, 2006), 5 were excluded as they had not

completed all the self-report anxiety measures. This resulted in a final sample of 110 youths. The

index cohort were recruited and screened as part of a study of neuropsychological functioning in

adolescents with conduct problems. All participants had varying degrees of DSM-IV conduct

disorder based on the Kiddie Schedule for Affective Disorders and Schizophrenia (K-SADS;

Kaufman, Birmaher, Brent, Rao, & Ryan, 1997). This is a semi-structured diagnostic interview

designed to assess current and past episodes of psychopathology in children and adolescents

according to DSM-IV criteria. The K-SADS was also used to screen out participants with

significant learning difficulties and major psychiatric disorder including psychosis and DSM-IV

anxiety disorders.

The mean age of this group was 16.27 (SD 0.83) years. All participants were British born with

92 (84.5 percent) being Caucasian, 7 (6.4 percent) of Asian decent, Afro-Caribbean decent, and 2

(1.8 percent) of Oriental decent. The mean age at first arrest was 12.92 (SD 1.6) years and mean

age at first antisocial behavior was 11.18 (SD 2.6) years.

2.2. Procedure

The study was approved by the North West Multi-Site Research Ethics Committee, and Local

Research Ethics Committees covering each site. Written informed consent was obtained from all

participants. For participants under the age of 16 years parental/guardian consent was obtained

before the participants were approached as this is required as part of the appropriate consent

procedures in the UK. Participants were assessed on an individual basis and completed the

assessment battery over one to two sessions in a quiet interview area. Due to the possibility that

there may be issues with literacy in some cases all the questionnaire measures were read out to

the participants. Psychopathy was assessed using the interview based Psychopathy Checklist:

Youth Version (Forth et al., 2003). The State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC,

Speilberger, 1973) was used to examine anxiety. Fearlessness was based on individual scores on


the Harm Avoidance subscale from the Temperament and Character Inventory (TCI, Cloninger,

1987) which was administered in full as part of the larger study.

2.3. Assessment measures

2.3.1. The Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version

The Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version (PCL: YV; Forth et al., 2003) was designed for use

in adolescents aged 1318 years. The PCL: YV contains 20 items, all items are scored on a three-

point ordinal scale 0 (no), 1 (maybe or in some respects), 2 (yes) or? (omit). The four-factor

model reported in the manual divides the original first factor into interpersonal and

affective and the second factor into lifestyle/behavioral and antisocial. The PCL: YV

was rated based on interview and file review by trained researchers. The PCL: YV total score has

adequate internal consistency (alpha = .79.83) and it has excellent inter-rater reliability

(ICC = .80.93, Forth & Burke, 1998; Kosson et al., 2002). Reliability of raters was checked in

this study using Intraclass Correlation Coefficients (ICCs) using a two-way mixed effects

analysis of variance model, with raters as a fixed factor and agreement defined as absolute. ICCs

for the three raters were .98, .96, and .98 for total score.

2.3.2. State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children

Anxiety was assessed using the self-report State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children (STAIC,

Speilberger, 1973). The STAIC, which has been extensively used in adolescents, includes two 20-

item self-report rating scales that measure two distinct anxiety concepts: state anxiety (S-

Anxiety) and trait anxiety (T-Anxiety). The STAIC is similar in conception and structure to the

State Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) anxiety measure for adults (Speilberger, Gorsuch, &

Lushene, 1970). The STAIC has been shown to have good testretest reliability over a 6-week

interval (.65.71) for the T-Anxiety form. The T-Anxiety measure also correlates highly (.75)

with the Childrens Manifest Anxiety Scale (Castaneda, McCandless, & Palermo, 1956).

Normative data are available (Speilberger, 1973). In this study Trait anxiety was examined as it is

an index of the general tendency to experience anxiety in many situations.

2.3.3. Harm Avoidance scale of the Temperament and Character Inventory

The TCI (Cloninger, 1987, 1994) measures seven basic dimensions of personality and the

Harm Avoidance (HA) subscale was used in this study as index of fearfulness. The HA scale is a

multifaceted, higher order temperamental factor consisting of four aspects or lower order

components: anxiety, worry and pessimism versus uninhibited optimism; fear of uncertainty;

shyness with strangers; fatigability versus vigor. Individuals with high HA tend to be cautious,

careful, fearful, tense and apprehensive. Low HA individuals are unresponsive to danger which

can lead to reckless optimism (Cloninger, 1987, 1994).

2.4. Data analysis

Associations between psychopathy and the anxiety/fear measures were examined using

Spearmans Rho. In line with previous research, data were re-examined (zero order partial

correlations) controlling for either the interpersonal/affective and lifestyle/antisocial components

of psychopathy as appropriate so that we could examine the unique relationships between

measures of anxiety/fear and psychopathy factors. Data were analyzed using SPSS Version 11.5

Chicago Illinois Inc. As there is previous evidence of specific associations between psychopathy


factors and anxiety/fear measures we set the alpha at p < .05 without Bonferroni corrections toavoid type II errors.

3. Results

The mean PCL: YV score was 21.47 (SD 6.53). The mean PCL: YV factor scores and mean

scores for the STAIC and TCI Harm Avoidance (HA) scale are shown in Table 1. The TCI HA

score correlated significantly with the STAIC (r = .42, p < .001) in this sample. There was nosignificant correlation between age and the anxiety/fearlessness or psychopathy measures.

3.1. Relationship Psychopathy and Trait anxiety

Table 2 shows the correlations between the PCL: YVand its factors and the STAIC, and TCI

HA scale. Although there was no significant correlation between total psychopathy score and the

STAIC trait anxiety measure, there was a significant negative correlation between STAIC trait

anxiety score and the PCL: YV affective factor.

Following the approach recommended in several recent studies (Frick, 1998; Hale et al., 2004;

Patrick, 1994) we examined the possibility of unique relationships between measures of anxiety/

fearlessness and more specific dimensions underlying the psychopathy construct. Based on Frick

et als (1999) finding that callous-unemotional or affective traits were negatively correlated with

anxiety when conduct problems are controlled for; we examined the association between STAIC

anxiety and the affective component of psychopathy having controlled for the behavioral/social


Table 1

Means and standard deviations for the PCL: YV, STAIC and TCI Harm Avoidance

Mean SD

PCL: YV Factor 1 interpersonal 2.57 1.9

PCL: YV Factor 2 affective 4.87 1.9

PCL: YV Factor 3 lifestyle/behavioral 6.69 1.8

PCL: YV Factor 4 antisocial 6.19 2.0

PCL: YV total score 20.35 5.9

Anxiety/fear measures

STAIC general feelings 30.89 6.7

TCI self-report Harm Avoidance 11.43 4.8

STAIC, State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children; PCL: YV, Psychopathy Checklist: Youth Version; TCI, Temperament

Character Inventory.

Table 2

Bivariate correlations between the PCL: YV and STAICTrait Anxiety and TCI Harm Avoidance

STAICTrait Anxiety TCI self-report harm avoidance

PCL: YV Factor 1 interpersonal .01 .17PCL: YV Factor 2 affective .19* .08PCL: YV Factor 3 lifestyle/behavioral .08 .14PCL: YV Factor 4 antisocial .03 .26**PCL: YV total .07 .22***p < .01 (two-tailed); *p < .05 (two-tailed). STAIC, State Trait Anxiety Inventory for Children; PCL: YV, Psychopathy

Checklist: Youth Version; TCI, Temperament Character Inventory.

deviance components. We found that the observed negative correlation between the affective

component of psychopathy and STAIC remained significant having controlled for the lifestyle

and antisocial components of the psychopathy construct.

3.2. Relationship between Psychopathy and Harm Avoidance

There was a significant negative correlation between total psychopathy score and TCI HA,

which was solely due to the inverse correlation between PCL: YV antisocial behavior factor

and HA. See Table 2. A secondary analysis of this relationship having controlled for the

interpersonal/affective components of psychopathy indicated the association between HA and

the antisocial component of psychopathy remained robust (r = .21, p = .025).

4. Discussion

Although traditional conceptualizations of psychopathy based on Cleckley (1976) suggest

that this construct is associated with fearlessness and low anxiety, the literature in this area is

inconsistent in both adults (Hale et al., 2004; Lilienfeld & Penna, 2001; Schmitt & Newman,

1999) and young people (Brandt et al., 1997; Frick et al., 1999; Kosson et al., 2002; Skeem &

Cauffman, 2003). Inconsistencies may be due to a combination of factors including inconsistency

in the anxiety/fear assessments, variable reliability of psychopathy measures across the lifespan

and, heterogeneity in the characteristics of the samples studied. In order to overcome some of

these problems we restricted our sample to male conduct-disordered youth who had been

screened for co-morbid psychopathology in light of reports that high levels of anxiety have been

reported in antisocial young people (Frick et al., 1999; Schmitt & Newman, 1999; Walker et al.,

1991; Zoccolillo, 1992).

We also examined the relationship between anxiety/fear and psychopathy in adolescents using

a measure of juvenile psychopathy that has now been validated in a number of international

settings and has been shown to have similar external correlates to the adult construct (Forth et al.,

2003). In this study we found that the TCI HA scale (fearfulness) was positively correlated with

anxiety as measured by the STAIC. This may be related to the multidimensional nature of the TCI

HA scale and the inclusion (in this scale) of general elements relating to neuroticism which

overlap with anxiety.

Similar to Frick et al. (1999), we found that putative measures of anxiety and fearfulness

showed a differential pattern of correlations with psychopathy and with different dimensions

within the construct. This is noteworthy as Frick et als. (1999) study looked at psychopathy in

children so the findings suggest some continuity across the lifespan at least in younger samples.

Our initial findings on the lack of a relationship between trait anxiety and total psychopathy

score essentially highlights the importance of looking at the elements of psychopathy that might

theoretically be negatively correlated with fear and anxiety, rather that viewing psychopathy as a

uni-dimensional phenomenon. Previous studies that have looked at correlations between total

psychopathy score and anxiety have generally found no consistent relationship in either adults or

children (Frick et al., 1999; Hale et al., 2004; Schmidt, Hoge, & Robertson, 2002; Schmitt &

Newman, 1999; Skeem&Cauffman, 2003). This may well be related to the heterogeneous nature

of the psychopathy construct but could also be related to a lack of stability of this construct across

the lifespan (Edens et al., 2001; Farrington, 2005; Hart et al., 2002; Seagrave & Grisso, 2002).

However, we did find that when the psychopathy was deconstructed into its main factors then

significant negative correlations between trait anxiety and the affective components of this


disorder emerged as were predicted by early theorists. Furthermore, this effect remained

significant when we looked at the unique relationship between the affective factor of

psychopathy and anxiety having controlled for the potential effects resulting from the behavioral/

antisocial factor of psychopathy. The latter finding fits with the notion that deficient affective

experience may be associated with hypo-responsiveness to threat cues (Blair, 1999). It also fits

with Hale et als. (2004) report of a negative semi-partial correlation between the affective

components of psychopathy in adults (assessed using the PCL-R) and general measures of

negative affect. It should be noted, however, that in all these studies (including ours) that the

observed relationships are statistically modest.

Kosson et al. (2002) reported that adolescents on probation with high PCL: YV scores were

characterized by higher scores on the Welsh Anxiety Scale, a measure of neuroticism or negative

affectivity. Their findings were inconsistent with most prior adult studies and with Brandt et al.

(1997) who reported that other measures of negative affect or anxiety were unrelated to modified

PCL-R ratings of adolescents based on files only. Although Kosson et al. (2002) suggested that

their sample may have been atypical on the dimension of negative affectivity; they cited work by

Bauer (1999) which indicates that psychopathy is positively correlated with anxiety in

incarcerated adolescent females. Clearly further studies in well characterized and screened

samples of adolescents are needed to advance our understanding of the relationship between

psychopathy and anxious and fearful traits. It is also clear there may be important gender

differences in the relationship between anxiety and psychopathy that require further study.

In this study, we found a significant negative correlation between total psychopathy score and

HAwhich was solely attributable to the antisocial factor of this disorder. While studies in adults

(e.g., Hale et al., 2004; Schmitt & Newman, 1999) have failed to find robust inverse correlations

between psychopathy and fear, studies in children (e.g., Frick et al., 1999) have shown very

modest associations between fearlessness and callous-unemotional traits after controlling for the

presence of conduct problems. We did not observe any significant association between the

affective components of psychopathy and HA suggesting that callous-unemotional traits may not

be robustly related to fearlessness. It is possible that there are age-related differences in the

association between callous-unemotional traits and fearlessness, however, our finding that HA

which encompasses fearlessness, is more related to the antisocial component of the psychopathy

construct suggests that fearlessness accounts for the repeated engagement in antisocial and

impulsive acts seen in psychopathic populations. Differences in the findings across studies may

be related in differences in the measures of fearlessness. Further studies are needed to clarify the

role of fearlessness in key components of the psychopathy construct across the lifespan.

It is important to note some of the limitations with this study. In particular, we assessed a

highly selected group of offenders with conduct disorder but no major axis I pathology on the K-

SADS. While this allows for a greater understanding of the relationship between psychopathic

traits in conduct-disordered male offenders the findings may not be truly representative of all

young offenders given the growing literature on the extent of co-morbidity between anxiety

disorders and antisocial behavior (Sareen, Stein, Cox, &Hassard, 2004). Our samplewas all male

and there is clearly a need to explore gender differences in anxietyfearpsychopathy

relationships given the unpublished report by Bauer (1999) suggesting that psychopathic traits in

females may be positively correlated with anxiety and neuroticism. We relied on self-report

measures of anxiety/fear which may be subject to response bias but also may not adequately

identify anxiety-related deficits in psychopathic offenders. Future studies looking at this area

should employ combined assessment approaches that include both psychometric assessments

and behavioral or physiological measures as different facets of psychopathy may have different


neural underpinnings (Blair, 1999; Patrick, 1994). Interestingly, Veit et al. (2002) have been able

to demonstrate differential neural circuits for fear conditioning in anxious and antisocial samples

using neuroimaging techniques.

Acknowledgements

The work was supported by Grants from the Health Foundation and National Forensic Mental

Health R&D program.

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Is juvenile psychopathy associated with low anxiety and fear in conduct-disordered male offenders?IntroductionMethodParticipantsProcedureAssessment measuresThe Psychopathy Checklist: Youth VersionState Trait Anxiety Inventory for ChildrenHarm Avoidance scale of the Temperament and Character Inventory

Data analysis

ResultsRelationship Psychopathy and Trait anxietyRelationship between Psychopathy and Harm Avoidance

DiscussionAcknowledgementsReferences

Is Juvenile Psychopathy Associated With Low Anxiety

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