Running Head: PSYCHOPATHY TRAITS AND RESPONSE MODULATION 1 Comparing Adolescent and Adult Offenders’ Patterns of Response Modulation as a Function of Psychopathy

Since measures of psychopathy have been extended downward from adults to adolescents, investigators have examined the validity of “juvenile psychopathy” by assessing whether its pattern of association with other constructs (e.g., symptoms, antisocial behavior) replicates the pattern found in adults. Few of these studies have focused on potentially explanatory constructs like response modulation (RM). According to Newman (1998), psychopathy reflects cognitive deficits in processing relevant peripheral stimuli while pursuing a goal. These RM deficits could be less indicative of psychopathy during adolescence than adulthood, given that cognitive control develops throughout adolescence. In this study of 84 adult and 98 adolescent offenders, we use a picture-word interference task and multiple measures of psychopathy to assess how strongly RM deficits relate to psychopathy (affective, interpersonal, & lifestyle features) and antisocial features, and explore the consistency of these relationships across adults and adolescents. Although the picture-word task reliably created semantic interference for both the adult and adolescent sample, we found that (a) among adults, RM deficits (low semantic interference) related weakly to affective features of psychopathy (r = -.25), whereas (b) among adolescents, enhanced RM (high semantic interference) related moderately to antisocial features (r = .37). Beyond suggesting that RM relates less to global psychopathy than specific trait constellations, these findings suggest that youth with classic psychopathic features do not manifest the same cognitive deficits as psychopathic adults. The possibility that immaturity in cognitive control acts as a confound is consistent with developmental concerns about the downward extension of psychopathy to adolescents.