ABSTRACT Title of Document: BIOBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING EMOTIONALITY IN ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS

Title of Document: BIOBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING EMOTIONALITY IN ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS Marsha Nneka Sargeant, Master of Science 2008 Directed By: Stacey B. Daughters, Ph.D., Assistant Professor (Research), Center for Addictions Personality and Emotion Research The distinguishing features of Antisocial Personality Disorder (ASPD) include a general disregard for the rights of others in the form of irresponsible, impulsive, deceitful, remorseless, and aggressive behavior. The DSM-IV (APA, 1994) adds that individuals with ASPD exhibit a low tolerance for frustration and boredom. In support of this perspective, a recent study investigating the relationship between ASPD diagnosis and distress tolerance indicated that ASPD diagnosis was indeed related to low distress tolerance (DT; Daughters, Sargeant, Gratz, Bornovalova, & Lejuez, in press). This finding is interesting in light of the relation of ASPD to psychopathy, in which callous and unemotional (CU) traits manifest in emotional hyporeactivity. We examined whether psychopathic traits and accompanying hypoarousal are related to higher DT and low biological stress response in the form of cortisol reactivity to a laboratory stressor, which would indicate that low DT may be specific to a subset of individuals who have both ASPD as well as low levels of psychopathic traits. Therefore, given the hyper-reactivity in ASPD, it was hypothesized that ASPD would be associated with low DT and high cortisol response to a laboratory stressor. Furthermore, given the hypo-reactivity associated with psychopathy, we hypothesized that psychopathic traits would be associated with high DT and blunted cortisol stress response. Results indicated that when considered together, ASPD and psychopathic traits predicted DT in expected directions. Specifically, ASPD was associated with lower DT and psychopathic traits with higher DT. Cortisol reactivity was not significantly related to ASPD or psychopathic traits, but exploratory analyses indicated that discrepant patterns of stress reactivity emerged for individuals with ASPD and high levels of psychopathic traits. These findings suggest unique contributions of ASPD and psychopathic traits to emotionality across behavioral and biological domains. Studies of this kind may assist in the development of more reliable and valid theoretical models of ASPD, with implications for treatment and intervention. BIOBEHAVIORAL MECHANISMS UNDERLYING EMOTIONALITY IN ANTISOCIAL PERSONALITY DISORDER AND THE ROLE OF PSYCHOPATHIC TRAITS By Marsha Nneka Sargeant Thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science 2008 Advisory Committee: Assistant Professor (Research) Stacey B. Daughters, Chair Professor Carl W. Lejuez Professor Jack Blanchard © Copyright by Marsha Nneka Sargeant 2008