The known relationship between psychological hardiness and anxiety responses (Hanton et al., 2003 and Hanton et al., 2013) and adverse health effects of stress (Kobasa, 1979, Maddi, 2002 and Sandvik et al., 2013) also means that characteristics of psychological hardiness are Roxadustat solubility dmso plausible mediators of the relationship between psychopathy

and anxiety. Due to previously found divergences in the relationship between the two PCL-R factors and anxiety, we hypothesized that F1 would be negatively related to anxiety, and that this negative relationship would be partly mediated by resiliency factors linked to psychological hardiness. With regard to the three dimensions of hardiness, we did not have any specific hypotheses, although some previous studies have found commitment and control, but not challenge, to CH5424802 clinical trial predict positive health effects, which could suggest that the challenge dimension taps a somewhat different psychological construct (Florian et al., 1995 and Hanton et al., 2003). The participants in the study were 74 male inmates at Bergen Prison, Norway. The age of the participants ranged from 19 to 71,

with a mean of 33.41 years. The participants were serving sentences ranging from 6 weeks to 20 years (mean 4.4 years, SD 5.24), including protective custody (21 years is the longest possible sentence in Norway). The participants had been convicted of a variety of crimes, including drug dealing, theft, armed robbery, rape, murder, and child molesting. All participants spoke Norwegian and the majority were Norwegian citizens (89.2%). In order to assess psychopathic personality, multiple trained observers administered the Psychopathy Checklist – Revised (PCL-R; Hare, 2003) to each participant, drawing on semi-structured interviews and extensive file reviews (sentences, prison journals, psychiatric evaluations, etc.). The PCL-R is a 20-item checklist

scored on a 3-point scale (0 = not present, 1 = somewhat present, and cAMP 2 = definitely present). The PCL-R items were divided into two factors according to the two-factor model (Hare, 2003 and Harpur et al., 1988). The Cronbach’s alpha for the present sample was .814 for the total score, .848 for F1, and .805 for F2. The inter-rater reliability for the PCL-R (N = 12) as measured by intra-class correlations ranged from good to excellent ( McDowell, 2006), with an ICC1 = .921 for the total score, an ICC1 = .720 for F1, and an ICC1 = .880 for F2. The Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS; Zigmond & Snaith, 1983) is a brief self-report instrument designed to measure generalized symptoms of anxiety and depression in non-psychiatric hospital clinics. It consists of two subscales, anxiety and depression, each containing seven items scored on a four-point Likert scale (0–3). As anxiety was the main interest in the present study, only the anxiety subscale (HADS-A) was included in the analyses.