Gender Differences in the Assessment and Manifestation of Psychopathy: Results From a Multicenter Study in Forensic Psychiatric Patients

Gender differences were explored in PCL-R codings and the manifestation of psychopathy in 197 female and 197 male patients admitted between 1984 and 2013 to one of four Dutch forensic psychiatric hospitals. Four groups were compared with respect to criminological characteristics, historical violence risk factors and psychiatric characteristics including incidents during treatment. The lowered PCL-R cut-off score of 23 as applied in the Female Additional Manual (FAM; de Vogel, de Vries Robbé, van Kalmthout, & Place, 2012 ) was used to define women with psychopathy. The four groups were: (1) women without psychopathy (PCL-R < 23), (2) women with psychopathy (PCL-R ≥ 23), (3) men without psychopathy (PCL-R < 30), and (4) men with psychopathy (PCL-R ≥ 30). Overall, it was found that women and men with psychopathy show multiple similarities in their personal and criminal histories, but there were also several gender differences. Women with psychopathy compared to men with psychopathy committed more fraud, offended more often out of relational frustration, were more often diagnosed with the Borderline Personality Disorder, and showed less physical violence, but more manipulative and self-destructive behavior during treatment. Overall, women obtained lower scores on the PCL-R than men. Predictive validity of the PCL-R for physical violence during treatment was good for men and moderate for women. When verbal violence was included in the definition of violence, the predictive validity of the PCL-R was good for both the female and male sample. Implications of this study for forensic practice are discussed and several directions for future research are provided.