Objective: We investigated the relations between psychopathic traits and fear enjoyment. Method: In Study 1, 140 undergraduate participants (62 men, 78 women) watched the footage of video game play meant to induce either excitement or fear, rating each on positive/negative adjectives. In Study 2, 150 undergraduate participants (94 women, 56 men) rated valence (positive/negative) of 20 sets of morphed surprise/ fear photos. Results: In Study 1, participants with higher levels of psychopathy rated the fear video as less negative and more positive. In Study 2, valence ratings became more negative as fear information increased (fear-laden faces were rated more negatively than surprise-laden faces). As well, there were significant interactions between psychopathy and morph level in predicting valence with psychopathic traits being associated with giving higher positivity ratings to fear-laden faces. Conclusions: The results of these two studies suggest that people with psychopathic traits have a more positive interpretation of the experience of fear, which could extend to evaluations of others' experiences of fear.
Research has examined the use of basic personality traits in describing problematic personality traits, such as borderline and psychopathic traits. Specifically, the Honesty–Humility factor of the HEXACO model of personality appears to account for a large proportion of the variance in these traits. The purpose of the present study was to examine whether the HEXACO model would similarly predict borderline traits. As found in previous research, psychopathic traits were predicted by low Honesty–Humility, Emotionality, Agreeableness, and Conscientiousness, whereas borderline traits were found to be negatively related to eXtraversion and Conscientiousness but had a significantly positive relationship with Emotionality. As Emotionality appeared to be a differential predictor in this study, future research should further examine how Emotionality distinguishes between the various problematic personality traits, which may aid potential treatments/therapies.
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