The role of brain/behavioral systems and temperament and character in predicting psychopathy in students with symptoms of conduct disorder

The aim of this study was to investigate the role of brain/behavioral systems and temperament and character in predicting psychopathy in students with conduct disorder. This study was correlational and the sample consisted of 600 high school students during the 2016-2017 academic year who were enrolled in high schools in Ardabil and were selected through cluster random sampling. Then, among these participants, 105 students who had a cut-off point on the conduct disorder scale of more than 70 were selected. Finally, the data of 97 participants who had completely answered the questionnaires were entered into SPSS, Ver. 21. To collect data, questionnaires of Conduct Disorder Questionnaire developed by Shahrivari et al., Psychopathy of Lynam et al., Brain/Behavioral Systems Inventory of White and Carver, and the Temperament and Character Inventory of Cloninger were used. The collected data were analyzed using Pearson correlation and multiple regression analysis. The results showed that the psychopathy has positive correlation with components of novelty seeking and BAS (p < .01) but it has negative correlation with components of harm avoidance, self-directiveness, cooperativeness and BIS (p < .01). The results of regression showed that novelty seeking, temperament, and BAS can predict the psychopathy in students with conduct disorder. It seems that in students with conduct disorder symptoms, the more active the activation system is, the more those cases are looking for innovation and risk.