Clarifying associations between psychopathy facets and personality disorders among offenders

Purpose This study examined bivariate, unique, and multivariate associations between psychopathy facets and other Personality Disorders (PDs). Method 76 incarcerated males were assessed with clinical interviews measuring psychopathy and DSM-5 PDs. Canonical Correlation Analysis (CCA) was used to examine multivariate associations between dimensional scores of psychopathy facets and other PDs. Results Preliminary analyses of bivariate and partial associations revealed that much of the covariation between psychopathy and PD traits reflected shared variance among psychopathy facets and among PD traits. After controlling for the shared variance, unique relationships were limited to positive relationships between Narcissistic PD and interpersonal facet and between Paranoid PD and antisocial facet ratings. Canonical Correlation Analysis yielded two pairs of functions that explained the shared variance between psychopathy and PDs. In the first pair of functions, elevations on the interpersonal and antisocial facets were associated with symptoms of Paranoid, Narcissistic, Histrionic, and Antisocial PDs. In the second pair of functions, high levels of the antisocial facet and low levels of the interpersonal facet were related to Borderline PD. Conclusion Results suggest that associations between psychopathy and DSM-5 PDs go beyond established links with Antisocial and Narcissistic PDs to include associations with Histrionic, Borderline, and Paranoid PDs.