No abstract

No abstract

No abstract

Three studies examined Jones' (Perspectives on Psychological Science, 9, 445-451, 2014) suggestion that psychopathic individuals use mimicry to avoid detection. In study 1, student, community, and offender participants posed fearful facial expressions while looking at a prototypical fear face. Expressions were coded for facial movements associated with fear and were rated on genuineness by a separate sample of undergraduates. Across samples, psychopathic traits were associated with increased use of typical action units for fearful facial expressions and with genuineness ratings. In study 2, undergraduates completed the Psychopathic Personality Inventory and told a story about a time when they did something that they should have felt remorseful for but did not. Factor 1 traits were found to positively relate to genuineness scores given by a separate sample of undergraduates. Finally, in study 3, four videos of false remorse stories told by violent offenders were rated by a sample of undergraduates. The two high factor 1 videos received significantly higher genuineness ratings, supporting the relationship between factor 1 and affective mimicry. Overall, findings suggest that the psychopathic traits (specifically, factor 1) may be associated with the ability to accurately mimic emotional expression (fear and remorse) leading others to perceive emotional genuineness.

The present study was a direct test of the cheater-hawk hypothesis which argues that psychopathy is related to two potentially adaptive interpersonal strategies: cheating and aggression. As expected, the measures of cheater and hawk behaviors comprised a single factor, according to a maximum-likelihood factor analysis. As hypothesized, psychopathic traits exhibited large positive correlations with measures of both cheater (entitlement, exploitiveness, and short-term mating orientation) and hawk (vengeance and aggression) behaviors. Furthermore, psychopathic traits were associated with the tendency of using individualistic and competitive tactics in an altruism game and being less likely to act in a prosocial manner. Finally, scores on the combined-cheater hawk variable were significantly correlated with psychopathic traits. As hypothesized, individuals scoring high on Factor 1 of psychopathy were more likely to utilize behaviors and strategies associated with the cheater-hawk designation, whether or not they scored high on Factor 2 of psychopathy. In general, the findings support the conceptualization that psychopathy represents a fast life-history strategy characterized by seeking personal gain over others, including exploitiveness (cheater), aggression (hawk), and risk taking. Results also indicate that cheater and hawk behaviors are part of a single strategy more often employed by those higher on psychopathic traits. Implications for treatment success are discussed.

No abstract