PSYCHOPATHIC PERSONALITY TRAITS, GENETIC RISK, AND GENES ENVIRONMENT CORRELATIONS

Course overview

This course is based upon material published in the journal Criminal Justice and Behavior by Sage Publications on behalf of the International Association for Correctional and Forensic Psychology (IACFP). This course, including the continuing education credits are offered free of charge as a benefit to all IACFP members. Abstract: There is a great deal of evidence indicating that psychopathy and psychopathic traits represent some of the strongest correlates to serious violent criminal behavior. As a result, there has been a recent surge of behavioral genetic studies examining the genetic and environmental factors that may be related to the development of psychopathy. The current study extends this line of research by analyzing a sample of kinship pairs from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health to estimate the extent to which genetic factors relate to measures of psychopathic personality traits created from the five factor model. Moreover, the authors also test for a series of gene¿environment correlations between genetic risk for psychopathic personality traits and measures of parental negativity. The results of the analyses revealed that genetic factors explained between .37 and .44 of the variance in measures of psychopathy. Additional statistical models indicated the presence of gene¿environment correlations between parental negativity and genetic risk for psychopathic personality traits. Forensic and clinical psychologists can benefit from this course. In addition, this course is appropriate for social workers and professional counselors, especially those interested in forensic psychology or those who work within the criminal justice system. This course is appropriate for intermediate and advanced level practitioners who wish to enhance their knowledge of psychopathic personality traits, genetic risk and gene-environment correlations. Authors: Beaver, Barnes, May and Schwartz Learning Objectives: This course will provide the practitioner with detailed information regarding psychopathic personality traits and gene-environment correlations. Specifically, a professional will: ¿ Identify the extent to which genetic factors relate to measures of psychopathic personality traits ¿ Distinguish significant correlations between genetic risk for psychopathic personality traits and measures of parental negativity ¿ Describe correlations between parental negativity and genetic risk for psychopathic personality traits. Come visit us on the web at www.ce-classes.com