Browsing by Author "Kaartinen, Essi"

Purpose of the study The interpersonal and affective features of psychopathy, callousness and unemotionality, as well as the behavioral component of psychopathy can be thought to have a negative influence on parenting quality. Little research has been conducted, however, on how psychopathy affects parenting. The current study looked into the relationship between psychopathy and parenting from the perspective of Life History Theory. Early rearing environment, especially the quality of attachment bonds, create the foundation for individual life history (LH-)strategy. Unsecure attachment orients the individual towards a fast LH-strategy, adaptive under harsh conditions, with its emphasis on short-term gains and diminished investment in parenting. Methods The study sample (N = 332) was part of an United States based Pathways to Desistance -study that followed young criminals for a period of seven years. Psychopathy was measured with Youth Psychopathic Traits Inventory (YPI)-questionnaire before the birth of the first child. Parental orientation was measured with parenthood-section of the Adult Role Orientation -questionnaire and the amount of child contact was measured by creating a three point variable on co-living and frequency of contact. Both parenting variables were measured during the last interview. The relationship between psychopathy and parenting orientation was analyzed using linear regression whereas the amount of child contact was predicted using multinomial logistic regression. In both cases the interactional effects between psychopathy and gender were also studied. Results and conclusions Among women psychopathy, especially lying ja manipulation, predicted lower parental orientation. Among men only callousness predicted lower parental orientation, whereas unemotionality predicted higher parental orientation. Behavioral features of psychopathy predicted lesser child contact in both genders. Gender had the greatest effect on child contact: almost all of the women lived with their child, whereas most of the men did not. The results were mostly in line with the hypothesis and previous studies. The results underline the importance of taking gender and the different psychopathy traits into account when studying the effects of psychopathy.