Remembering chaos: why an unpredictable childhood predicts psychopathic traits differently from a harsh one

Psychologists have long known that difficult childhoods are statistically linked to psychopathic traits in adulthood. A study led by Virgil Zeigler-Hill, drawing on nearly 4,900 adults, asks a more precise question.

Does it matter whether a childhood was harsh, or whether it was simply unpredictable?

The distinction matters because life history theory, an evolutionary framework for development, treats the two as different signals about the world. Harshness refers to a consistently difficult environment, such as scarcity or physical threat that stays fairly constant. Unpredictability refers to instability, such as chaotic households or erratic caregiving, where conditions change without warning. The theory predicts that these different signals steer people towards different strategies for getting by.

The researchers treated psychopathy not as a single trait but as three: meanness, meaning callousness and exploitation; disinhibition, meaning impulsivity and poor self-control; and boldness, meaning fearlessness and social dominance. Adults' recollections of an unpredictable childhood were positively associated with both meanness and disinhibition, and these links were generally stronger in men than in women.

Harshness told a different story. Its expected link with disinhibition did not survive once unpredictability was taken into account. In fact, after controlling for unpredictability, harshness was slightly negatively associated with disinhibition. Harshness was also negatively associated with boldness, and its relationship with meanness was small and, once other factors were held constant, ran in a negative direction.

The researchers explain the gender difference through an evolutionary lens. Because men have historically faced more intense competition for status and mates, they may be more inclined to respond to unpredictable environments with heightened risk-taking, dominance-seeking and reduced restraint, the very features that define meanness and disinhibition.

The findings for harshness are more tentative, and the authors are open about the mixed literature. Some evidence suggests hardship encourages self-interested exploitation, while other evidence suggests it strengthens cooperation and empathy, since surviving genuine scarcity often depends on leaning on others rather than exploiting them. Harshness lowering boldness fits a related logic. Growing up amid real and chronic danger may train people towards vigilance rather than fearless confidence, because underestimating threats in a genuinely dangerous environment carries real costs.

The study's main contribution is as much methodological as substantive. By separating psychopathy into three dimensions rather than one, and by distinguishing harshness from unpredictability rather than lumping all adversity together, the researchers uncovered patterns that cruder measures would miss.

It is worth stressing that this is correlational research based on adults' retrospective memories of childhood rather than verified records, and memory can itself be coloured by later personality. Even so, the findings suggest that when it comes to adult psychopathic traits, how unstable a childhood felt may matter more than how tough it was.

Zeigler-Hill, V., Vonk, J., Dryer, S., & Besser, A. (2026). Remembering chaos: The connections that perceived childhood unpredictability and harshness have with psychopathy. Personality and Individual Differences, 262, Article 113932. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2026.113932