The Relationship between Psychopathic Traits and Facial Emotion Recognition in a Naturalistic Photo Set

A body of research has examined how psychopathic personality traits may be related to the recognition of emotional facial expressions, and results have been mixed. The present study used a new set of naturalistic, non-posed photos of emotional facial expressions to examine the relationships between accuracy for facial emotion categorization and psychopathic traits in a sample of incarcerated men. In addition, intellectual functioning was measured and examined in relation to categorization accuracy. Results revealed that both psychopathic traits and intellectual functioning were predictive of accuracy for categorization of emotional expressions. After controlling for intellectual functioning, Factor 1 (interpersonal and affective psychopathic traits) were negatively related to the accurate recognition of confusion and fear as well as total accuracy, and Factor 2 psychopathic traits (lifestyle and antisocial traits) were positively related to the accurate recognition of anger, confusion, disgust, and fear, as well as total accuracy. Intellectual functioning was positively related to the accurate recognition of confusion, disgust, sadness, surprise, and fear, as well as total accuracy. Results suggest that the two commonly measured factors of psychopathy are differentially related to emotion recognition, and that intellectual functioning plays an important part in the recognition of facial expressions and should be considered in relation to psychopathic traits in future studies of emotion recognition.