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Although there has been increasing interest in understanding developmental trajectories and childhood precursors of psychopathy, the study of the syndrome and its manifestations in female or nonwhite youth has lagged behind this broader surge. Given the already controversial nature of downward translations of psychopathy to children and adolescents (Falkenbach, Poythress, & Heide, 2003), it is not surprising that the main priority in the literature thus far has been to establish the validity of existing conceptualizations of youth psychopathy rather than to extend the construct fully to incorporate gender and culture. Nonetheless, several pioneering researchers have studied the relevance and validity of psychopathic traits in female and ethnic/minority youth.

This chapter reviews the admittedly sparse literature that examines gender and cultural moderators in the study of youth psychopathy. We review and evaluate the growing literature on the psychometric properties and functioning of instruments used to measure the psychopathy construct, and the correlates of these psychopathy assessments and their predictive utility. In the process of reviewing this literature, we (1) attend to the degree to which these studies have addressed key distinctions relevant to issues of gender and sex, ethnicity, culture, and class that are typically ignored in the mainstream psychopathy literature, and (2) highlight similarities between