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BackgroundThe occurrence of a significant relationship between psychopathic traits and intelligence is still open to debate. Most of the relevant information has been obtained from crystallized IQ tests or on psychopathic male offenders. In this study we hypothesized a negative correlation between psychopathic traits and fluid intelligence on a sample of criminal female in-patients.MethodWe carried out a correlational study on a selected sample of 56 criminal female offenders. Variables that were measured include the Hare Psychopathy Checklist Revised (PCL-R) total score (and, separately, the scores from its four subscales: Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle and Antisocial) and fluid IQ measured by Raven's Progressive Matrices (RPM).ResultsPearson's correlation between RPM IQ and total PCL-R score was negative (r54 = − 0.55, p < 0.001); women with greater psychopathy traits (total PCL-R score) had lower IQ scores. Negative correlations were also found between IQ and the four PCL-R subscales, Interpersonal, Affective, Lifestyle and Antisocial (r54 = − 0.35, p < 0.01, r54 = − 0.52, p < 0.001, r54 = − 0.53, p < 0.001, and r54 = − 0.49, p < 0.001 respectively).ConclusionsThe results indicate a general negative relationship between PCL-R and IQ, equally distributed across the four subcomponents of the psychopathic trait, and support the view that unsuccessful psychopathic women have poor planning and are unable to foresee and represent future consequences of their actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Lynn (2010a, 2010b) argued that individuals from south Italy have a lower IQ than individuals from north Italy, and that these differences in IQ are at the basis of north–south gap in income, education, infant mortality, stature, and literacy. In the present paper, we discuss several theoretical and methodological aspects which we regard as flaws of Lynn's studies. Moreover, we report scores of southern Italian children on Raven's Progressive Matrices and a north–south comparison for the PASS theory of intelligence as measured by the Cognitive Assessment System (Taddei & Naglieri, 2006). Both results reveal similar levels of performance of northern and southern Italian children in fluid intelligence and PASS (Planning, Attention, Simultaneous, and Successive) cognitive abilities. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]