Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
The diverse array of traits in the title for this chapter reflects the disagreements among personality classifiers as to the nature of “personality in the third dimension.” The Eysencks proposed the label of “Psychoticism” for this higher order factor. Both Block (1977) and Zuckerman (1989) suggested that if a clinical term was appropriate for the scale called “Psychoticism” (P) (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976), it should be “Psychopathy” (Antisocial Personality Disorder in the current psychiatric nomenclature). The subtraits of P described by Eysenck and Eysenck (1985) include: aggressive, cold, egocentric, impersonal, impulsive, antisocial, unempathic, creative, and tough-minded. With the possible exception of creativity, these are all traits of the psychopath rather than the psychotic, particularly if one includes the endogenous depressives among the psychotic. The highest scoring clinical groups among males and females are: prisoners, drug addicts, alcoholics, and personality disorders (Eysenck & Eysenck, 1976), all of which contain high proportions of antisocial personality disorders. Psychotics, among females at least, score low on the P scale relative to other clinical groups. The concept of a P dimension came from ratings of clinical groups that largely included psychotics and neurotics, but not psychopaths (S. B. G. Eysenck, 1956), and this may account for the conceptualization of the P dimension as psychoticism. Revisions of the P scale have tended to eliminate most of the psychotic sounding items except for a few with a mildly paranoid flavor. Psychopaths often voice the opinion that everyone is “against them.”
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