Psychopathy and Attachment: Examining the Relationship between Secure Attachment Priming and Psychopathy

<p>The purpose of this research was to employ implicit and explicit security priming in order to examine the relationship between attachment dimensions and expressed psychopathy; specifically, it was hypothesized that security priming would reduce levels of expressed psychopathy. A repeated measures design was also used to assess the association between state attachment variables and expressed psychopathy. The results showed that security priming was effective at reducing expressed psychopathy for individuals high in trait attachment anxiety. Security priming also caused changes in the associative relationships between attachment dimensions and expressed psychopathy. These findings increase our understanding of the relationships between attachment and psychopathy and have implications for clinicians treating psychopathy. Future research is needed to fully understand the relationships between attachment and expressed psychopathy. Future research should also attempt to replicate the current findings with methodological modifications to address the current study’s limitations.</p>

Name thesis:degree_name

Master of Science in Experimental Psychology (M.S.)

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis (open access)

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Psychology

Year dc:date.available

2013

Author dc:creator

• Allen, Victoria

Contributors dc:contributor

• Karen Z. Naufel
• Michael Vitacco

• ETD
• Security priming
• expressed psychopathy
• state attachment variables
• in trait attachment anxiety
• Child Psychology
• Developmental Psychology
• Psychology

Repository record dc:identifier

https://digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/etd/850

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu:etd-1850