Childhood Maltreatment and Aggressive Behaviour in Violent Offenders with Psychopathy

Nathan J. Kolla · Charlotte P. Malcolm · Stephen Attard · Tamara Arenovich · Nigel Blackwood · Sheilagh Hodgins

78 citations0/0 files storedThe Canadian Journal of Psychiatry

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Psychopathy, Forensic Psychiatry, Sexual Offending Crime Patterns and Interventions Child Abuse and Trauma

Abstract

OBJECTIVE: To document experiences of childhood maltreatment among violent offenders with antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) distinguishing between those with and without the syndrome of psychopathy (+P and -P), and to determine whether maltreatment is associated with proactive and reactive aggression. METHOD: The sample included 10 violent offenders with ASPD+P, 15 violent offenders with ASPD-P, and 15 non offenders. All participants completed interviews with the same forensic psychiatrist focusing on physical, sexual, and emotional abuse prior to age 18 using the Early Trauma Inventory. Aggression was assessed using the Reactive-Proactive Questionnaire. RESULTS: Violent offenders with ASPD+P reported significantly more severe childhood physical abuse, but not more sexual or emotional abuse, than violent offenders with ASPD-P and non offenders. Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R) scores, but not childhood physical abuse, were associated with proactive aggression. Childhood physical abuse was associated with reactive aggression, as was an interaction term indicating that when both PCL-R scores and childhood physical abuse were high, so was reactive aggression. CONCLUSIONS: Among violent offenders, PCL-R scores were positively associated with proactive aggression, while experiences of childhood maltreatment were not. This finding concurs with previous studies of children and adults and suggests that proactive aggression may be a behavioural marker of psychopathic traits. By contrast, childhood physical abuse was associated with reactive aggression, even among violent offenders with high PCL-R scores. This latter finding suggests a strong influence of childhood physical abuse on the development of reactive aggression that persists over the lifespan.

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References

2002Role of Genotype in the Cycle of Violence in Maltreated Children 1987Social-information-processing factors in reactive and proactive aggression in children's peer groups.1989The Cycle of Violence 2006The reactive–proactive aggression questionnaire: differential correlates of reactive and proactive aggression in adolescent boys 2003Callous-Unemotional Traits and Conduct Problems in the Prediction of Conduct Problem Severity, Aggression, and Self-Report of Delinquency 1998Reactive Aggression Among Maltreated Children: The Contributions of Attention and Emotion Dysregulation 2010Research Review: The neurobiology and genetics of maltreatment and adversity 2001The importance of timing: The varying impact of childhood and adolescent maltreatment on multiple problem outcomes

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