Revisiting borderline personality disorder as a female expression of psychopathy: a facet level analysis and meta-analysis

Epidemiological and clinical evidence indicates gender differences in the rates of many forms of psychopathology. Understanding these differences is crucial to continued construct development and the advancement and implementation of primary, secondary and tertiary interventions across groups. Of particular interest is how psychopathology may manifest differently based on gender. A unique illustration of this is found in the relationship between borderline personality disorder (BPD) and psychopathic traits. Research suggests gender differences in relationships between psychopathic traits and BPD such that women but not men scoring high on both the interpersonal-affective (F1) and impulsive-antisocial (F2) features of psychopathy display higher levels of BPD. Here, we use hierarchical regression to investigate and extend these findings by examining distinct facets of F1 (interpersonal versus affective) and F2 (impulsive lifestyle and antisocial) across two community dwelling samples with recent histories of violence and/or drug use (N=467, 34% women; N=319, 42% women). Adjusting for demographic factors and other facets, we find that antisocial traits are a stronger correlate of BPD in women than men. This effect is further moderated by interpersonal traits such that antisocial traits are most strongly related to BPD at high versus low levels of interpersonal traits in women, with the opposite being the case in men. In addition, we conduct a meta-analysis of the currently available literature. We are able to show that the gendered effect at the psychopathy factor level is likely small, that there is heterogeneity across study results, and that measurement technique (e.g., interview vs. self-report) may impact effect strength. These results suggest distinct manifestations of psychopathic traits in women, provide a more fine-grained understanding of the relationship between gender, psychopathy, and BPD, and provide directions for further research.

Name thesis:degree_name

M.A.

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Psychology

Grantor

University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Year dc:date

2015

Author dc:creator

• Kruepke, Michael David

Contributors dc:contributor

• Verona, Edelyn
• Barbey, Aron K

• Psychopathy
• Borderline Personality Disorder
• Gender

Statement dc:rights

• Copyright 2015 Michael D. Kruepke

Language dc:language

en

Handle dc:identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/2142/87982

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.ideals.illinois.edu:2142/87982