Examining relationships between facial emotion recognition, self-control, and psychopathic traits in a non-clinical sample
Introduction
Few clinical conditions are considered to be as malignant as psychopathy, and as a result it has been extensively studied (Skeem, Johansson, Andershed, Kerr, & Louden, 2007). Despite this work, disagreement persists regarding the causes and underlying features of the disorder (Fowles, 2011). Some investigators have suggested the phenomenology of the disorder is heterogeneous, with different developmental routes contributing to the expression of subtypes of psychopathy (Skeem et al., 2007, Vaughn et al., 2009). While the majority of research in this area has been undertaken using clinical populations, usually drawn from forensic settings (Neumann, Hare, & Pardini, 2014), it is now well established that some individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits live successfully within the community (Cleckley, 1982). Several researchers (e.g., Lilienfeld, 1994, Lilienfeld, 1998, Lynam, 2002) have argued that rather than existing as an all-or-none category, personality traits associated with psychopathic behaviours may actually exist on a continuum, with less extreme variations of the condition observed across the wider population (Lilienfeld, 1994, Lynam, 2002).
Psychopathy is primarily characterised by a lack of empathy, diminished capacity for remorse and poor behavioural control (Cleckley, 1982). However, the range of behaviours that make up the psychopathic personality are wide ranging, and several theorists (e.g., Hare and Neumann, 2008, Marcus et al., 2004, Skeem et al., 2003) have argued that psychopathy is a dimensional construct. Non-clinical samples can therefore be employed for study in terms of degree of psychopathic traits, rather than limiting studies to extreme groups alone (Book and Quinsey, 2004, Paulhus and Williams, 2002, Sellbom and Verona, 2007). Karpman (1948) was likely the first investigator to describe the distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy, however this differentiation has since been elaborated upon by a number of subsequent influential theorists (Blackburn, 1975, Hare, 1968, Porter, 1996). Both primary and secondary psychopathy are similar in that each subtype is associated with high levels of antisocial and criminal behaviour, however primary and secondary psychopathy are thought to differ in terms of their underlying causes (Hicks, Vaidyanathan, & Patrick, 2010). Primary psychopaths are thought to be incapable of empathy, regardless of environmental influences. They are theorised to have a constitutional deficit that leads to callous and manipulative behaviour, superficial relations, and impoverished negative affect including guilt, fear and anxiety (Dean et al., 2013). Conversely, secondary psychopaths are theorised to initially have a relatively normal capacity for emotional experience. As a result of environmental influences such as parental abuse or trauma, secondary psychopaths develop a proneness to poorly regulated negative affect characterised by high levels of anxiety, emotional distress, hostility, aggression, and impulsive behaviour (Dean et al., 2013). Although support for the distinction between primary and secondary psychopathy in clinical populations is well established (e.g., Morrison and Gilbert, 2001, Skeem et al., 2007, Vaughn et al., 2009), Lee and Salekin (2010) suggest that further investigation of the correlates of these subtypes in non-clinical samples is warranted.
A key aspect of many theories of psychopathy is the suggestion that psychopaths process emotions differently than do non-psychopaths (Williamson, Harpur, & Hare, 1991). In typically developing individuals, Huebner, Dwyer, and Hauser (2009) contend that feelings of guilt and shame about actions that harm others typically compel us to refrain from socially unacceptable behaviours. Cleckley (1982) argues that psychopaths have difficulty understanding and expressing affective cues. These emotional deficits may then interfere with moral socialisation, and subsequently increase susceptibility to engaging in antisocial behaviour (Blair, 1995). Blair has described the violence inhibition mechanism (VIM), which proposes that psychopaths fail to experience the fear and sadness of others as aversive. The VIM contends that there is a neurological system that preferentially responds to negative affect, particularly sad and fearful emotional displays (Blair, 1995).
The theory of empathy dysfunction in clinical samples is supported by a number of studies that have shown psychopaths to be significantly less accurate at recognising facial emotion than are non-psychopaths (e.g. Blair et al., 2004, Hastings et al., 2008, Marsh and Blair, 2008). Hastings et al. (2008) studied 145 male jail inmates and found that psychopathy was associated with impoverished affect recognition, particularly for sad and fearful emotional expressions. Blair et al. (2004) found similar results when 200 psychopathic individuals showed selective impairment for the recognition of fearful expressions. Marsh and Blair (2008) have suggested that such findings could be attributed to dysfunction among antisocial individuals in specific neural structures, most notably the amygdala, which is crucially involved in processing fearful facial affect.
Although studies using clinical samples have often demonstrated a link between deficits in processing facial affect and psychopathic traits, the results from non-clinical samples have been equivocal. In a study that investigated 175 undergraduate students (119 females and 56 males), Del Gaizo and Falkenbach (2008) found participants who scored highly on primary psychopathic-traits were more accurate at interpreting facial emotions overall, including the fear emotions, with no relationship found between secondary psychopathic traits and affect recognition. Conversely, a study by Montagne et al. (2005) investigated 32 participants from the general population, 16 of whom were selected after scoring highly on psychopathic personality characteristics, and 16 scoring low to act as controls. Montagne and colleagues found that while the two groups did not differ in their overall ability to recognise facial affect, participants scoring highly on psychopathic personality characteristics were significantly less accurate at recognising the fear expression as compared to controls.
Several authors (e.g., Morgan and Lilienfeld, 2000, O’Gorman and Baxter, 2002) have suggested that deficits of self-control are an important characteristic of psychopathy, and a significant body of research supports the notion that poor self-control is associated with increased aggression and antisocial behaviour (e.g., Burton et al., 1998, Roussy and Toupin, 2000). It has also been suggested that self-control failure is expressed differently in primary versus secondary psychopathy (Levenson, Kiehl, & Fitzpatrick, 1995). Consequently, developing an understanding of the extent to which deficits in self-control might predict the emergence of psychopathic traits may be important when considering the aetiology of and interventions for psychopathic behaviours.
Findings from clinical populations generally support the proposition that some form of affect recognition deficit exists for psychopathic individuals. However, the evidence from non-clinical samples is less robust and the current study seeks to clarify if similar deficits are also evident in these populations. Based on the empathy dysfunction model and given the support in the literature demonstrating that clinical populations of psychopathic individuals are impaired when required to identify facial affect, it was hypothesised that individuals who scored highly on a measure of psychopathic traits (primary and secondary) in a non-clinical sample would show a correlated deficit in accurately recognising facial emotion. Specifically, it was hypothesised that the affect recognition deficit for these individuals would be greater for the fear and sad expressions in particular. Furthermore, it was hypothesised that individuals who scored highly on a measure of primary psychopathy would demonstrate a greater affect recognition deficit as compared to those who scored highly on a measure of secondary psychopathic traits. In contrast, those scoring highly on measures of secondary psychopathy would demonstrate greater deficits of self-control as compared to individuals who scored highly on measures of primary psychopathy.
Section snippets
Procedure and participants
Participants were recruited via email, social media and printed advertising. The sample consisted of 479 participants, 26.93% (n = 129) of whom were male. The mean age of the participants was 27.29 years (SD = 11.18, range 18–69 years). The sample included participants from various racial and ethnic backgrounds with 72.7% (n = 348) Caucasian, 11.7% (n = 56) Asian, 3.8% (n = 18) Hispanic, 2.9% (n = 14) African and 9% (n = 43) from other racial backgrounds. 62.2% (n = 298) of participants were full time and 14% (n =
Results
The recruitment process yielded a full sample of 513 individuals. Twenty-seven participants were excluded due to random responding on the facial recognition task, and seven participants were excluded as they had a diagnosis of schizophrenia, had suffered a significant neurological injury (e.g. stroke, tumour), or had impaired vision. Preliminary analyses of assumption testing were conducted to check for normality, linearity and outliers. This cleaning process yielded a final sample of 479
Discussion
This study investigated the relationship between psychopathic traits, self-control and facial affect processing in a non-clinical sample. Consistent with hypothesis one, both primary and secondary psychopathic traits were related to an overall reduction in affect processing accuracy. The findings are inconsistent with Del Gaizo and Falkenbach (2008), who observed the opposite association between affect recognition and sub-clinical primary psychopathic traits. The affect processing deficit
References (46)
- et al.
Psychopathy and the dimensions of personality disorder in violent offenders
Personality and Individual Differences
(1998) A cognitive developmental approach to morality: Investigating the psychopath
Cognition
(1995)- et al.
Reduced sensitivity to others’ fearful expressions in psychopathic individuals
Personality and Individual Differences
(2004) - et al.
Psychopaths: Cheaters or warrior-hawks?
Personality and Individual Differences
(2004) - et al.
Construct validation of a self-report psychopathy scale: Does Levenson’s self-report psychopathy scale measure the same constructs as Hare’s psychopathy checklist-revised?
Personality and Individual Differences
(2001) - et al.
Secondary psychopathy, but not primary psychopathy, is associated with risky decision-making in noninstitutionalized young adults
Personality and Individual Differences
(2013) - et al.
Primary and secondary psychopathic-traits and their relationship to perception and experience of emotion
Personality and Individual Differences
(2008) - et al.
Psychopathy and identification of facial expressions of emotion
Personality and Individual Differences
(2008) - et al.
The role of emotion in moral psychology
Trends in Cognitive Sciences
(2009) Conceptual problems in the assessment of psychopathy
Clinical Psychology Review
(1994)
Methodological advances and developments in the assessment of psychopathy
Behaviour Research and Therapy
Deficits in facial affect recognition among antisocial populations: A meta-analysis
Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews
Reduced efficiency in recognising fear in subjects scoring high on psychopathic personality characteristics
Personality and Individual Differences
A meta-analytic review of the relation between antisocial behavior and neuropsychological measures of executive function
Clinical Psychology Review
Self-control as a personality measure
Personality and Individual Differences
The dark triad of personality: Narcissism, Machiavellianism, and psychopathy
Journal of Research in Personality
Without conscience or without active conscience? The etiology of psychopathy revisited
Aggression and Violent Behavior
Neuropsychological correlates of psychopathic traits in a non-incarcerated sample
Journal of Research in Personality
Psychopathic personality or personalities? Exploring potential variants of psychopathy and their implications for risk assessment
Aggression and Violent Behavior
Factor structure of the Self-Report Psychopathy scale (SRP-II) in non-forensic samples
Personality and Individual Differences
Emotional expressions forecast approach-avoidance behavior
Motivation and Emotion
Cross-cultural emotion recognition among Canadian ethnic groups
Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology
An empirical classification of psychopathic personality
The British Journal of Psychiatry
Cited by (24)
Associations between psychopathic traits and multi-level emotions decoding among non-clinical population: Preliminary results
2022, Annales Medico-PsychologiquesEmploying matched tests to assess facial affect recognition anomalies in offenders high in psychopathy
2020, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :Associations between overall levels of psychopathic traits and FAR are typically not found (Cigna, Guay, & Renaud, 2017; Seara-Cardoso, Neumann, Roiser, McCrory, & Viding, 2011), but traits linked to the affective features of psychopathy have been associated with superiority in sadness recognition (Cigna et al., 2017) and deficits in fear recognition (Mowle, Edens, Ruchensky, & Penson, 2017), whereas antisocial traits have been linked to sadness recognition deficits (Cigna et al., 2017). Additionally, studies have reported indices of primary psychopathy personality traits (i.e., traits associated with interpersonal antagonism; Miller, Gaughan, & Pryor, 2008) are associated with superiority for recognizing fear (Del Gaizo & Falkenbach, 2008) and general FAR deficits (Prado, Treeby, & Crowe, 2015), and that such traits are unrelated to FAR (Book, Quinsey, & Langford, 2007). In contrast to forensic samples, studies examining community/student samples provide no evidence for associations between FAR and interpersonal or lifestyle traits.
Dual-hormone regulation of psychopathy: Evidence from mass spectrometry
2019, PsychoneuroendocrinologyBoldness psychopathic traits predict reduced gaze toward fearful eyes in men with a history of violence
2017, Biological PsychologyCitation Excerpt :Several prominent accounts of psychopathy emphasise the presence of emotion recognition impairments in relation to the fearless and unempathic features (e.g., Boldness, Meanness) of the disorder (Blair, 2005, 2008; Moul, Killcross, & Dadds, 2012). These difficulties have been observed among adult male psychopaths, and in relation to the broader psychopathy phenotype in both adults and children (Blair et al., 2004; Dolan & Fullam, 2006; Dadds et al., 2008; Hastings, Tangney, & Stuewig, 2008; Kosson, Suchy, Mayer, & Libby, 2002; Prado, Treeby, & Crowe, 2015). Although it is theorized by Blair (2005, 2008) that impairments in recognizing others distress cues (fear and sadness) are of particular importance in psychopathy, a recent meta-analysis suggests that these difficulties are pervasive across fear, sad, happy, and surprise emotional expressions (Dawel et al., 2012).
Nonverbal self-accuracy: Individual differences in knowing one's own social interaction behavior
2016, Personality and Individual DifferencesSocial and emotional intelligence moderate the relationship between psychopathy traits and social perception
2016, Personality and Individual DifferencesCitation Excerpt :For example, Del Gaizo and Falkenbach (2008) found that primary psychopathy is associated with more accurate perception of fearful faces, whereas secondary psychopathy was unrelated to emotional expression recognition accuracy. Conversely, Prado, Treeby, and Crowe (2015) found that although higher levels of both primary and secondary psychopathy were associated with reduced accuracy in identifying a variety of facial expressions, this deficit was actually more pronounced for individuals scoring higher in primary relative to secondary psychopathy. The inconsistency across these studies further demonstrate the need to assess psychopathy as a multi-dimensional construct when exploring its relation to social perception accuracy, at least in the context of emotion recognition.