Investigating the role of boldness in the conceptualization of psychopathy

The Triarchic model of psychopathy (Patrick, Fowles, & Krueger, 2009) posits that psychopathic personality comprises three domains: boldness, meanness, and disinhibition. The present Master’s thesis aimed to clarify the role of boldness (i.e., social dominance, venturesomeness, emotional resiliency) in the definition of psychopathy—a topic of recent debate. Undergraduate students (N = 439) compared the lexical similarity of boldness, meanness, and disinhibition with two contemporary models of psychopathy: the Comprehensive Assessment of Psychopathic Personality (Cooke, Hart, Logan, & Michie, 2012) and the Five Factor Model of psychopathy (Widiger & Lynam, 1998). Participants also completed the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure (Patrick, 2010) and a variety of antisocial and prosocial outcomes. Boldness was generally rated as lexically unrelated to contemporary models of psychopathy. Boldness did not add incrementally to or interact with meanness and disinhibition in their associations with external criteria. These findings bear implications for our definition and assessment of psychopathy.