Research explaining the overlap between psychopathy and alexithymia is in its infancy. A study by Lander, Lutz-Zois, Rye, and Goodnight (2012) revealed a significant positive correlation between secondary, but not primary, psychopathy and alexithymia. However, little is known about what accounts for this differential association. Because both alexithymia (Webb & McMurran, 2008) and secondary psychopathy (Blackburn, 1996) have been linked to Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD), the current study sought to determine if emotional processing deficits characteristic of BPD could explain the link between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. The results supported the hypothesis that BPD would mediate the association between secondary psychopathy and alexithymia. Implications, limitations, and future directions are discussed.
Available at: http://works.bepress.com/catherine_zois/6/
NOTICE: this is the authors' version of a work that was accepted for publication in the journal Personality and Individual Differences. Changes resulting from the publishing process, such as editing, corrections, structural formatting, and other quality control mechanisms may not be reflected in this document.
Note: Other publications by the author Catherine J. Lutz-Zois may appear in this repository under the names Catherine J. Lutz and Catherine L. Zois.