Completing the Deficit Model of Psychopathy: The Critical Role of Rule Governance

Psychopathy has traditionally been defined through the presence of antisocial traits but could be defined through the deficit of prosocial traits. In a deficit model, honesty is the inverse of interpersonal manipulation, empathy is the inverse of callous affect, and conscientiousness is the inverse of erratic lifestyle. However, there is no theoretical inverse of antisocial behavior (ASB). We propose that this inverse is rule governance (RG). After defining the psychopathy deficit model, we introduce RG as the inverse of ASB. Because psychopathic individuals ignore socially defined prescriptive rules (social norms) and focus on short-term (impulsive) gains, variations in RG are theoretically responsible for the observed integration of ASB within psychopathy. Thus, a lack of RG theoretically drives ASB. From a practical standpoint, the measurement of deficits in RG should be able to capture nuanced characteristics of psychopathy, especially subclinical psychopathy, that traditional models may lack.