Marital quality improves self‐ and partner‐reported psychopathy among Chinese couples: A longitudinal study

Abstract Background Psychopathy is closely related to many negative interpersonal outcomes in daily life, including violence. Therefore, psychopathy intervention in subclinical individuals has significant application value. Objective Guided by the personality–relationship transaction model and social investment theory, this study examined how marital quality affects self‐ and partner‐rated psychopathy. We also used the actor–partner interdependence mediation model to explore the mediating effect of communication. Methods We examined self‐reports and partner reports of psychopathy, marital quality, and communication among 260 married Chinese couples. Results The results indicated that marital quality directly influenced couples' self‐rated psychopathy, with both actor and partner effects on husbands' psychopathy and actor effects on wives' psychopathy. Moreover, verbal communication had mediating effects at time 2 between marital quality at time 1 and partner‐reported psychopathy at time 3. Meanwhile, the mediating effect of nonverbal communication was not significant. Conclusion Our investigation of relationship effects on psychopathy revealed that the underlying mechanisms differed between self‐ and partner‐rated psychopathy. The findings can highlight directions for exploring potential intervention strategies for subclinical psychopathy.