This study assessed the relationships between psychopathic personality traits and perceived stress among 264 young adults. A hypothesized indirect effect of emotion and empathy deficits in the psychopathy-stress association was also investigated. Results indicated stronger associations between perceived stress with secondary psychopathy compared with primary psychopathy. Indirect effects of alexithymic traits on the relationship between stress and psychopathic personality traits were reported. Although the current study showed that both primary and secondary traits are significantly association with higher levels of self-reported stress, it is the latter which seems to be most important, lending more weight to the need to consider mental health outcomes in those with high levels of secondary psychopathy characteristics.

Introduction

The common lay concept of psychopathy is one of coolness and control. However, the empirically-derived profile of psychopathic behavior includes indications of higher stress reactivity, irritability and anger (Cleckley, 1941/1976; Patrick, 2018). Such emotion-regulation difficulties may underpin the proactive and reactive types of aggression observed (Cima & Raine, 2009). Emotional distress is both an antecedent and consequence of antisocial behaviour (Deschamps, Verhulp, de Castro, & Matthys, 2018; Garofalo, Neumann, & Velotti, 2018). High scores on psychopathy measures, along with elevated self-reported perceived stress, have been found to predict concomitant violence offending and victimization (Silver, Piquero, Jennings, Piquero, & Leiber, 2011). Although experimental evidence showing lower autonomic nervous system activation in stress reactivity and in stress recovery in psychopathic samples have been replicated (e.g., Beauchaine, Gatzke-Kopp, & Mead, 2007; Nederhof, Marceau, Shirtcliff, Hastings, & Oldehinkel, 2015; Sijtsema, Van Roon, Groot, & Riese, 2015), few studies have investigated the associations between psychopathy and perceptions of stress. Before we examine what we already know about psychopathy and stress, it is important to consider work on primary and secondary variants of psychopathy. First proposed by Karpman (1941), these variants are typically defined by low anxiety/internalizing symptoms in the case of primary psychopathy, and increased anxiety and internalizing symptoms (secondary variant), often seen alongside greater levels of traumatic experiences than those presenting with the primary subtype profile (Skeem et al., 2007; Tatar et al., 2012).