The importance of impulsivity and cognitive schema

Fifty federally incarcerated males completed a self-report measure of impulsivity called the I Questionnaire. Offender self-schemas for a hostile world were measured with responses to questions about hypothetical social situations and with perceptions of weapons during a binocular rivalry task. Multiple regression analysis indicated that 31% of the variance in violent criminal history and 48% of the variance in psychopathy, as measured with the Psychopathy Checklist Revised, could be accounted for by combinations of impulsivity and self-schemas for a hostile world. It was concluded that persistently violent males and males with traits of psychopathy impulsively react to attributions that others are threatening them. Keywords: psychopathy; aggression; schemas; binocular rivalry; prisoner