Students, sex, and psychopathy: Borderline and psychopathy personality traits are differently related to women and men's use of sexual coercion, partner poaching, and promiscuity

Khan, Roxanne, Brewer, Gayle ORCID: 0000-0003-0690-4548, Kim, Sonia and Centifanti, Luna C Munoz ORCID: 0000-0003-4562-8187 (2017) Students, sex, and psychopathy: Borderline and psychopathy personality traits are differently related to women and men's use of sexual coercion, partner poaching, and promiscuity. PERSONALITY AND INDIVIDUAL DIFFERENCES, 107. pp. 72-77.

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Abstract

Primary psychopathy traits correlate with sexual coercion, mate poaching, and lack of relationship exclusivity, reflecting instrumental use of others to fulfill personal desires. These sexual behaviors can also be explained by sexual thrill-seeking/impulsivity, or striving for relationship intimacy through fear of abandonment. Given that impulsive thrill-seeking and rejection-avoidance are related to secondary psychopathy and borderline personality disorder, respectively, this study is the first to consider the independent effects of psychopathic traits versus borderline personality disorder traits on sexual behaviors in a non-clinical mixed sex university student (N = 187) sample. Results broadly support our sexual behavior dissociation hypothesis: Unique relationships were identified between primary psychopathy traits and use of non-violent sexual coercive tactics (for women), reduced relationship exclusivity terms, and increased likelihood of mate poaching, whereas borderline personality disorder traits showed an independent relationship with increased likelihood of sexual coercion (for men) and having lost a partner through poaching. These opposite experiences of mate poaching, along with the unique association between psychologically manipulative sexual coercion and primary psychopathy, are considered here in terms of their ‘fit’ with clinical equivalents.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	publisher: Elsevier articletitle: Students, sex, and psychopathy: Borderline and psychopathy personality traits are differently related to women and men's use of sexual coercion, partner poaching, and promiscuity journaltitle: Personality and Individual Differences articlelink: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.027 content_type: article copyright: © 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Uncontrolled Keywords:	Psychopathy, Borderline personality disorder, Sexual coercion, Mate poaching, Relationship exclusivity, Sex-differentiation
Depositing User:	Symplectic Admin
Date Deposited:	05 Dec 2016 16:56
Last Modified:	13 Apr 2023 07:47
DOI:	10.1016/j.paid.2016.11.027
Related URLs:	Author Publisher
URI:	https://livrepository.liverpool.ac.uk/id/eprint/3004765