Figure 1

Extreme Harm Avoidance (HA) temperament and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) profiles in violent offenders and controls. Violent offenders were divided into those with high HA and those with low HA on the basis that 21% (42/198) of offenders scored lower or equal to control HA mean. The temperament profile of offenders with low trait harm avoidance followed the control profile and deviated substantially (SD 2.29) from the high HA offender mean. The mean profile of the high HA offenders resembled that of the offenders with antisocial personality disorder. A) Displays that (1) low HA offenders showed no difference compared to controls in trait impulsiveness (NS2); p = .85 (absolute mean rank difference = 19.8), whereas high HA offenders scored higher than controls on trait impulsiveness; p = .0004 (52.7), (2) low HA offenders featured more curiosity and excitement (NS1) than high HA offenders; p = .0001 (78.7), and (3) the total novelty seeking score showed no difference between high and low HA groups; p = 1.0 (14.1). B) Displays that low HA offenders' HA mean score was even lower than the mean score of the lower half of controls; 7.7 SD 3.1 vs. 9.2 SD 2.5; p = .002 (23.0). C) Trait HA1 showed the largest absolute score difference between low and high HA offenders (3.4) indicating that low HA offenders were more optimistic and careless than high HA offenders who were prone to anticipatory worry and anxiety. D) Low HA offenders were dependent on environmental reward (RD3) similarly to controls; p = .12 (42.3), whereas high HA offenders featured greater detachment and individualism than controls; p = .0004 (75.8). Kruskal-Wallis test (df = 2) was applied for comparison of means.