Response perseveration in psychopathic women

Recent attempts to validate the Psychopathy Checklist-Revised (PCL-R; R. D. Hare, 1991) as a measure of psychopathy in female offenders have been limi ted by a failure to examine laboratory correlates of the syndrome. We asses sed 112 incarcerated women by using the PCL-R and examined their performanc e on a card perseveration task that has been used to demonstrate response p erseveration in psychopathic men. Contrary to prediction, psychopathic wome n did not perseverate responding when the PCL-R was used either dimensional ly or categorically. The authors discuss the implications of the results fo r the PCL-R and for female psychopathy more generally.