"Psychopathy, Gender, and Entrepreneurial Intentions: Overcoming Societal Gender Role Expectations"

The examination of how anti-social cognitive processes impact entrepreneurship is still in the nascent stage. Previous research examining the direct relationship between anti-social cognitive processes and entrepreneurial behaviors has met with mixed results with some evidence suggesting a positive relationship between them. We extend this literature by examining the moderating effect of psychopathy on the relationship between gender and entrepreneurial intentions (EI). Drawing on the entrepreneurial cognitions literature, we hypothesize that females with high levels of psychopathy are more likely to have stronger entrepreneurial intentions than women who do not. Our findings indicate that the relationship between gender and EI is moderated by psychopathy such that at lower levels of psychopathy, men have higher levels of EI than do women. However, at higher levels of psychopathy, the EI level of men shows a slight decrease, while the EI level for women shows a strong increase. Our findings challenge curr...