Is Low Anxiety Part of the Psychopathy Construct?

Low anxiety has traditionally been considered a feature of psychopathy, but there has been mixed research support for this conceptualization. We investigated the PPI‐R‐SF S tress I mmunity subscale (a measure of low anxiety) in relation to 2 widely used self‐report psychopathy scales in a sample of 346 undergraduate students. Results indicated that PPI‐R‐SF S tress I mmunity was nearly unrelated to other indicators of psychopathy, showing a near‐zero loading on the common psychopathy factor defined jointly by the scales of the PPI‐R‐SF and SRP‐III . S tress I mmunity also showed a pattern of personality and temperament correlates much different from those of other psychopathy subscales. Finally, S tress I mmunity had a slight negative correlation with self‐reports of diverse antisocial acts. These results suggest that despite its historical importance in the conceptualization of psychopathy, low anxiety is likely not a core feature of psychopathy.